Cubic and UC San Diego to Collaborate on Next Generation Intelligent Travel Research

Cubic Transportation Systems, an integrator of intelligent transport systems and services, and the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) have entered into a collaborative partnership to research the next generation of intelligent travel technologies for cities.

Cubic will contribute $500,000 over five years to the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering to fund research done by faculty, students and Cubic Transportation Systems staff. The project aims to achieve a better understanding of the application and utilization of emerging technologies, with the ultimate goal of making transportation easier, more convenient, more economical and environmentally greener for transit operators and their customers.

“The partnership with UC San Diego will help Cubic realize its vision of mobility in the future – what we call Nextcity,” said Matt Cole, senior vice president of strategy and business development. “Consumer mobile devices, wireless communications and account-based payment processing create the opportunity to make significant new information available to travelers.”

Through integration of regional transport payments and traveler data, Nextcity will deliver personalized information to passengers so they can make informed travel choices. “Our research will make better use of the existing data and seek innovative ways to apply this information and technology to better the traveler’s experience, and improve the efficiency and utilization of the transportation system and a city’s resources,” said Pradip Mistry, vice president of engineering.

The research partnership potentially spans mobile and web technologies, wireless networking, location-based services, data warehousing and system architecture and analytics, all areas of expertise at the university.

Combining the broad scope of the university’s research expertise across these domains with Cubic’s insight into the transportation sector will be instrumental to finding practical yet innovative new approaches, said Frieder Seible, Dean of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and holder of the Walter J. Zable Professor endowed chair at the school. “Cubic has been a long-standing partner of UC San Diego and the Jacobs School, and we see this new collaboration as a way to deepen that relationship with our faculty and students.”

Cubic is the global leader in intelligent transport systems and services. With Cubic’s “smart” fare payment cards and advanced integrated ticketing systems users board vehicles faster, travel and transfer between modes more easily. Transit operators see the benefits of shorter boarding times and better data on transport usage patterns.

Cubic is also supporting account-based processing for open payment standards, enabling transit riders to use their own fare media, such as a bank-issued MasterCard PayPass or Visa payWave credit, debit and prepaid contactless smart cards or an NFC-enabled mobile phone. With more than 20 years of contactless smart card payment experience in the transit industry, Cubic has active open payment projects with the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Transport for London (TfL), TransLink in Vancouver and New Jersey and Delaware’s Port Authority Transit Corporation (PATCO) system, the first in the world to use transit-branded contactless Visa prepaid cards. Account-based processing opens up the opportunity for the integration of transit payment with other forms of transport payment such as tolling and parking.

The Cubic and UC San Diego research collaboration will help discover new technologies and strategies that reduce the costs and increase the utility of these services,