Hitachi Rail's ground breaking smart digital transport app enters commercial service in Genoa

Upgraded service also now includes automatic access to lowest possible weekly fares for trains carrying passengers to and from Genoa from across Italy.

Hitachi Rail's world-first 360Pass app, connecting Genoa's entire public transport infrastructure, is now available to all 600,000 citizens and the 3,500,000 annual visitors, following a new agreement with the city's transit authority, AMT.

Having completed a successful year long trial, the 360Pass app, known as GoGoGe in Genoa, will transform multi-modal transport across the city. The service offers every person living or visiting Genoa the possibility to plan, book, and pay the cheapest fare for multimodal trips by integrating the city's public and private transport system. It is available from this month and is completely free to download.

The service offers users the possibility to plan, book, and pay for multimodal trips by integrating the city's public and private transport system. In total, 663 buses, 2500 bus stops, the metro line used by 15 million p.a., two funiculars, one historic hillside railway, 10 public lifts and two suburban bus routes that span 50km, have been connected. App users also have the power – via the touch of a button on their mobile phones – to hire an electric car, pay for parking or find an e-moped.

The 360Pass app ensures passengers have access to the fastest and most convenient multi-modal route options and real time journey updates. It also allows passengers to check how busy bus services are through the app and choose less crowded services as desired. Underlining the value of this technology, a recent study commissioned by Hitachi Rail on global attitudes to public transport found that 73% of people would be more likely to travel on public transport if they could see live information on crowding levels on services.

The app has eradicated the need to queue to purchase a traditional paper ticket ever again; or download multiple apps for different transport services. The 360Pass connects 5G Bluetooth sensors placed on services and stops around the city to identify when a passenger with the mobile app has boarded, how far they have travelled and when they disembarked. This allows users to pay the best possible fare even when using different transport means.

In addition to the commercial launch, through a new partnership with Trenitalia (Ferrovie dello Stato Group), app users will be able to travel on regional and intercity trains as well as public transport in the Ligurian capital. Users will also now be able to get the best weekly rate for their trips.

The app will automatically detect when the cost of the user's travel across the city's bus, tram and metro services has reached that of a weekly travel card: 17,50 Euro. At that point, it will be possible to travel free of charge for the rest of the week and no further costs will be charged to the user. This will enable regular transport users to make substantial savings, for example, a passenger that takes the bus and metro to work and back five days a week would automatically save €12.50 with the weekly travelcard.

Alessandro de Grazia, Group Head of Digital Sales and Smart Ticketing, Hitachi Rail, said: "This is a major achievement in our ground-breaking work to digitally connect a city's entire public transport infrastructure. Our completely-free to use, 360Pass app transforming how people travel. For the first time, a person can plan, book and pay for a multi-modal journey involving inter-city trains, trams, buses, metros and e-scooters all through one app.

"This app facilitates travel from the private car to public transport for both the 600,000 residents of Genoa and the 3,500,000 visitors who flock to the city. Its power and simplicity is helping the city reduce emissions and congestion".

Since July 2022, Hitachi Rail has been using its smart mobility suite called Lumada Intelligent Mobility Management, to digitally connect public and private hire transport in Genoa via its 360Pass app.

The GoGoGe app is the result of a partnership between Hitachi Rail, AMT and the Municipality of Genoa, aimed at encouraging the use of public transport and the hiring of electric vehicles by also offering solutions to meet the last-mile needs of Genoa's many passengers.

About 360Pass App

Technology offers a way to reduce the reliance on private vehicles – helping the municipality to meet its goals for congestion relief and reducing emissions – while optimising costs and the provision of transportation across the region.

In addition to the 360Pass mobile app for passengers, the Lumada Intelligent Mobility Management suite gives operators the ability to connect, scale and optimise their city's entire transportation network in real time.

The over 7,000 Bluetooth sensors installed in Genoa allow the creation of a "digital twin" of the region's transport and passengers' end-to-end multimodal journeys. This real-time electronic map of how the city is moving is a powerful tool to allow operators to optimise services, timetables and create a system that better accommodates the changing peaks and troughs in passenger demand. It can identify the issues that deter public transport usage, such as congestion, emissions, crowding or gaps in services.

In addition to smart ticketing, the suite can combine solutions to help operators control traffic flow and service patterns in real time, allow operators to react more effectively to disruption or large scale events (concerts or sporting) happening across the city. Further, by joining up information about the level of emissions and congestion in different geographical area, it allows operators to make smart decision about where to target electrification of services first and prioritise locations for charging for e-bus and e-car fleets and infrastructure.

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