About Abellio Group
Abellio is the international passenger transport subsidiary of the Dutch national railway company, Nederlandse Spoorwegen. Everyday our people provide rail, bus and tram services to 1.7m customers across the UK, Germany and in the Netherlands. In the UK we operate buses through Abellio London & Surrey, as well as ScotRail and Abellio Greater Anglia train services, and Merseyrail in a joint venture with Serco. In Germany we operate Abellio Deutschland, serving communities in North Rhine Westfalia, Saxony, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Hesse and Thuringia. In the Netherlands we operate with Qbuzz, bus services in Fryslan, Groningen, Drenthe, Utrecht and through our minority share position in HTM, tram and bus services in and around the municipality of The Hague. Our role in transport extends beyond the journey from a-to-b. With our international heritage and our policy of sharing best practice, not just amongst ourselves, but across the wider transport industry, we provide thought leadership and truly innovative ideas which make a positive contribution to the communities we serve. For more information on Abellio visit www.abellio.com.
About Cubic Corporation
Cubic Corporation designs, integrates and operates systems, products and services focused in the transportation, defense training and secure communications markets. As the parent company of two major business units, Cubic’s mission is to increase situational awareness and understanding for customers worldwide. Cubic Transportation Systems is a leading integrator of payment and information technology and services to create intelligent travel solutions for transportation authorities and operators. Cubic Global Defense is a leading provider of realistic combat training systems, secure communications and networking and highly specialized support services for military and security forces of the U.S. and allied nations. For more information about Cubic, please visit the company's website at www.cubic.com or on Twitter @CubicCorp.
Media contacts:
Laura Leslie (on behalf of Abellio)
Associate Partner
Charlotte Street Partners
+44 131 516 5310
Laura.leslie@charlottestpartners.co.uk
Hannah Williams
Director, Technology
Zeno Group
+44 20 3047 2675
Hannah.williams@zenogroup.com
Nina Jimenez
Manager of Corporate Communications
Cubic Corporation
858-505-2003
nina.jimeneztaylor@cubic.com
Award for product innovation goes to Cubic’s NextAgent self-service video ticket office piloted with Abellio at UK’s Stansted Airport
SAN DIEGO – April 21, 2016 – Abellio Greater Anglia, a subsidiary of transport provider Abellio Group, and Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS), a business unit of Cubic Corporation (NYSE: CUB), have been awarded “Product Innovation of the Year” at the SmartRail Europe Innovation Awards 2016. The award, announced April 19 in Amsterdam, recognizes the best and most innovative products in the rail and metro industry.
CTS created NextAgent, an innovative hybrid between a virtual walk-up ticket office, a ticket vending machine and a video-linked call center, which has been trialed at Stansted Airport in partnership with Abellio Group. Since the introduction of NextAgent in October 2015, it has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from users, citing the ease of use and a secure and service-oriented customer experience.
Not only does the NextAgent technology provide a virtual ticket office in remote locations and areas where there is limited space for a full ticket office, it is also an important customer information point. The NextAgent operators are on hand to remotely answer customer questions, provide advice about best fares and reassure passengers about their onward travel. The ability to provide this service is fundamental to the high importance that Abellio places on customer experience. An additional benefit of introducing NextAgent technology is that it can help ease congestion at stations.
“Achieving the Product Innovation Award reinforces the positive reactions from our customers. Our survey showed that 92 percent of users felt they would benefit from a ticket machine like NextAgent,” said Jeremy Whitaker, head of commercial development at Abellio. “We are thrilled that this new service has been recognized for providing an innovative and enhanced customer experience, offering a seamless door-to-door journey, at Stansted Airport.”
“We are equally as thrilled to receive this recognition in partnership with Abellio, with whom we are working side-by-side to trial what they consider an efficient and qualified solution for assisting their passengers arriving at Stansted, en route from plane to train and their final destination,” said Roger Crow, CTS-Europe, executive vice president and managing director. “This demonstrates our goal of understanding customer requirements and delivering a technology solution that meets our customer’s need for enhancing their travelers’ experience.”