12 October 2022
Rise Digital Media, a leading provider of digital services and technical solutions to the bus and coach industry, has entered the school transport market with its NextStop mobility platform. Working alongside some of the UK’s best known coach operators during the development of the platform, NextStop now provides a complete digital solution for student account registrations, e-ticketing, vehicle tracking, child safeguarding and the overall management of school transport services.
The NextStop mobility platform - which includes supporting driver, ground staff, passenger and parent apps – also provides operators with the tools they need to create, manage and oversee the day-to-day running of school services, giving increased visibility of everything from passenger loadings (by stop), to service punctuality, online ticket sales and driver performance. NextStop is a cloud-based Mobility-as-a-Service platform currently used by over 60 bus and coach operators.
Commenting, Christopher Nice, Operations Director at Rise said:
“The rollout of our NextStop platform for school transport service providers has been carefully planned over the last 12 months, taking onboard feedback from operators, schools, parents and passenger groups. The platform currently hosts over 350k passenger accounts, while supporting thousands of vehicle movements and ticket transactions each day. The platform has been further developed to keep pace with changing operational landscapes, travel patterns and passenger behaviours, many of which have arrived as a result of the Covid pandemic.
“With local authorities, transport officers and other partners requiring greater visibility and understanding of school transport operations, and with the simplification of ticketing [access and purchasing] becoming increasingly important, NextStop customers can offer a complete and comprehensive solution for their school transport networks.”
Here’s what some of Rise DM’s school transport customers have to say:
Christian Fahy, Senior Commercial Contract Manager at National Express Transport Solutions: "Working with Rise DM on the implementation of their NextStop App for a number of Universities and staff shuttles over the years has been hugely successful. The support provided by the team has been second to none and they always work tirelessly to explore every solution to our unique requirements. The driver and rider versions of the App are easy to use while always being beautifully branded for each client and the additional Travel Screens implemented at each site have received great feedback."
Katie Smith, Home to School Transport Manager at Elite Services Limited: “The transition from our antiquated school transport system to NextStop has been seamless: from training sessions, zoom calls and regular emails to tweaking the system to fit with our needs, everything has been handled by Rise team with professionalism and friendliness. They have gone above and beyond to ensure that NextStop works for us and our customers.
“We are now leading our field with the state-of-the-art technology NextStop is providing and our customers are enjoying the greater control they have over their child’s transport too. As a team, we are now able to spend our time growing our routes and customer base instead of number crunching and manually collating data to run financial reports.”
Matthew Turner of Go Goodwins added: “Mayne Coaches adopted NextStop for its school services so parents can track buses and receive notifications when their children are on the bus. We also use NextStop for all Manchester United supporters’ club travel and have found the supporting passenger app is great for customers as it allows them to view service information and purchase and download travel tickets in an instant.
“The service from Rise DM and the personal touches from the team have been fantastic. They keep things nice and simple and their platform is extremely user-friendly.”
Vicky Lacey, Engineering Support Manager at Tyrers Coaches: “Working with NextStop has been very straightforward. The systems have been easy to use and if I have had any issues the team are always on hand to offer assistance. They have given us the perfect, bespoke solution for tracking vehicles for one of our major clients who requires a more unique service.”
Kate Holder of Masons Minibus & Coach Hire said: “I am extremely happy with the user experience I am currently receiving from BusHub and NextStop.
“I have had two instances recently where some of the system’s newer functionalities have been especially useful, allowing me to pull together, at very short notice, a set of statistics for management relating to a particular group of drivers and their route punctuality. This was super simple to achieve and the reports provided all the data required.
“My bookkeeper has also reported that the reports pertaining to payments received now make it much easier for her to access the data needed to keep on top of these.”
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Notes to Editors
- Rise Digital Media is leading supplier of digital/technical products and service to the passenger transport industry.
- NextStop offers:
- Easy to use service, route and timetable building tools
- Online and in-App student enrolment processes
- Real-time vehicle tracking for operators, passengers and parents (of student travellers)
- BODs integration for vehicle movement tracking
- Live bus tracker online and in-app
- Online, In-App and onBus ticket management and payment services
- Direct Debit and Card payment options
- Safe and secure QR code ticketing for travellers
- Bulk purchasing (for leas/business/colleges/institutions)
- Instant messaging/push notifications to customers
- Parent alerts confirming children have boarded services
- Instant reports covering:
- Ticket sales and transactions
- Customer account registrations
- Service punctuality
- Driver/vehicle performance
- Passenger loadings by service, stop, date and time
- Ticket scans by user
- For additional information or comment, please contact Christopher Nice on chris.nice@risedm.com