Thursday, April 12, 2018 | 2:41 p.m.
Uber and the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada’s mobile ticketing partner, Masabi, signed a deal this week to combine their services.
The partnership will allow the RTC to integrate its transit passes into the Uber app, enabling a convenient transfer from ride-sharing to public transit services, according to Brad Seidel, RTC spokesperson.
“This opportunity will help solve the first-mile, last-mile challenge for transit agencies across the world,” Tina Quigley, general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission, said during a meeting today.
The new ticketing option would be run by Masabi’s Justride software development kit, a mobile ticketing service for public transit.
The technology allows third-party applications to request fare types, make payments and provide visual and barcode mobile tickets to a passenger through a secure ticket wallet.
“At Masabi, our mission has always been to make it quicker and easier to get around cities using a range of transit options and in Uber, we’ve found a perfect partner to help us further that mission,” said Brian Zanghi, chief executive officer for Masabi.
“Uber paved the way for a new paradigm in urban mobility, and we’re tremendously excited to power seamless connectivity between Uber’s options and public transit, reducing the number of cars on the road and enabling more on-demand transportation,” Zanghi said.
With many Las Vegas residents already traveling via multimodal transportation, the partnership will make incorporating the different modes of travel simpler.
“Having a greater variety of transportation modes at your fingertips helps make it increasingly easy to live without a car,” said Jahan Khanna, head of product, mobility at Uber. “That’s why we want to provide alternatives to personal car ownership by bringing together multiple modes of transportation right in our app.”
“We’re excited to partner with Masabi to incorporate transit as an option in the Uber app,” Khanna said.
The partnership is in its infancy, and Uber expects the service to be available to users later this year.
