The future of public and private transit systems, with Matthew Booterbaugh

In this episode of the Smart Community podcast, I had a really great chat with Matthew Booterbaugh, the Vice President of Continuous Improvement at RATP Dev North America. We discuss Matthew's background in IT, his interest in helping organisations build efficiencies in their processes, and how that has led him to the public transit industry. Matthew tells us what RATP Dev does, some of the projects he's been working on in Europe and Asia, and what we can learn from those projects, including the electrification of bus fleets in France. We talk about why Smart Cities and in particular Smart Mobility is so important, as well as how Matthew sees the US embracing Smart Concepts. We cover the cost effectiveness of on-demand transit services compared with traditional services, and some ways to better integrate between the public and private sectors in the transit industry. Matthew also tells us about a project involving social media and news listening platforms being used to collect real-time customer service and operational data for transit companies, as well as what RATP Dev USA has planned for the future. We finish our chat discussing the emerging trend of consolidating trip planning and payment system applications between private and public transit options. As always, I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed making it.