Cubic Transportation Systems is a leading integrator of payment and information solutions and related services for intelligent travel applications. Cubic delivers integrated systems for transportation and traffic management, delivering tools for travelers to choose the smartest and easiest way to travel and pay for their journeys and enabling transportation authorities and agencies to manage demand across the entire transportation network, all in real time. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Matt Newsome, Senior Vice President and General Manager for North America at Cubic Transportation Systems, to learn more about the company.
Matt Newsome’s Background
Newsome was born and raised in San Diego, and he graduated from the University of California, San Diego in 1991 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering.
Newsome said:
“I wasted no time and started to work the same year at Cubic Transportation Systems as an associate mechanical engineer. Little did I realize I would spend the next 32 years of my life working on just about every transit system Cubic has been involved with. While the design was great, I found my way into managing the engineering team, program management, product management, sales, and eventually, account management. Cubic has afforded me so much opportunity to learn and stretch myself with so many diverse programs in so many different places. I have been incredibly fortunate to be able to travel to most of the great cities we operate in experience the systems and cultures firsthand, and meet our great teams in the process. Now full circle, I continue to stay very involved with local universities through mentorship and internship programs.”
“I am the Senior Vice President and General Manager for North America, focusing on our Western Region, Canada, and Latin America. I oversee the design and build, ongoing operations, and innovate growth of our systems in the Bay Area, Vancouver, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. I also recently became the General Manager of Umo. With over 35 contracts, Umo is an innovative SaaS solution that simplifies transportation management for our customers and their customers. For all this, I am responsible for well over 200 awesome ‘Cubes’ who do everything from answering the phones, helping our customers’ riders, field techs ensuring that equipment is up and running to our engineering, PM and Ops team who are working with our customers on the day-to-day and future opportunities.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Newsome’s favorite memory working for the company so far? Newsome reflected:
“That is such a tough one; I must split it in two. On the professional side, I have worked with some great teams on some of the company’s greatest accomplishments, including the launch of the Oyster card in London, the launch of the MetroCard in New York, the launch of Clipper in the Bay Area, the launch of TAP in Los Angeles and the launch of Compass in Vancouver. While I always thought as a kid that I wanted to be in aerospace engineering and launch rockets, I quickly found out it wasn’t what I launched but rather the thrill of launching — executing and delivering over years of hard work.”
“On a personal side, I have met and made so many wonderful, lifelong friends – both Cubes and customers, including my wife at Cubic. We like to work hard and play hard. People ask me, ‘Why have you stayed with Cubic for so long?’ Easy, my family is here.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Newsome explained:
“Cubic Transportation Systems specializes in mobility solutions which encompasses products and services that enable automated fare collection (AFC), services, and Intelligent Transport Solutions for traffic management.
Core CTS products include:
Cubic’s Urban Mobility Back Office – Our urban revenue management solutions help large-scale agencies modernize their fare collection systems. This includes software and hardware (turnstiles, validators, mobile inspection devices, and ticket vending machines). These give customers a convenient, simple way to pay for all modes of travel however they choose — through either closed-loop smart cards, mobile payments, contactless bank cards, or account-based ticketing. Additionally, our versatile back office makes fare capping simple no matter how complex the fare model is, so everyone always gets the best price for their trip.
Intelligent Transportation Solutions – Our suite of hardware (cameras, ATMS cabinets, and consoles) and software allows us to deploy adaptive traffic systems that gather and interpret data to help cities actively prevent congestion, make real-time network adjustments, and improve safety for vulnerable road users as well as allow planners and engineers to model data to better plan for the future.
Umo – Our scalable digital platform-based technology helps agencies simplify multi-modal journey planning, fare collection, and customer rewards, integrating them into a single, easy-to-manage mobile application that allows agencies to modify, incentivize, and improve the customer experience. The platform approach and Software-as-a-Service model enable everyone from the smallest bus operator to the largest regional transport authority to deliver a reliable transit experience for their communities.
Services – From machine learning, automation, and chatbot functionality, Cubic’s services enable agencies to run a modern payment system.”
Evolution Of Cubic Transportation Systems’ Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Newsome noted:
“Cubic’s been around for five decades.”
“Since 1972, we’ve improved transportation and mobility through our unique vision and ground-breaking innovations. In its early decades, Cubic produced its first fare gates, launched its first fare boxes, and expanded internationally in places like the UK and Hong Kong. Cubic’s ticketing technology continued evolving after its first magnetic stripe paper ticket launch in 1975, followed by the first deployments of our smart card systems in 1999, both with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.”
“In the early 2000s, continuing our long-standing partnership with London, Cubic created the Oyster Card, transforming travel with Europe’s first multimodal ticketing system. London quickly became the first large-scale deployment for contactless bank card ticketing in transit around the world, and the intellectual property for which has subsequently been used to deploy similar solutions to New York City, Brisbane, Boston, San Francisco and Chicago. In 2006, Cubic introduced the first mobile ticketing solution in Germany with our customer Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (RMV). We continued to pioneer with enabling virtual transit cards within the mobile wallet in places like Chicago, Washington D.C, San Francisco, and LA which was an industry first.”
“As the industry evolved, so did we. In 2013, we transformed from being transit-focused to mobility-focused by understanding that people’s journeys consist of multiple modes of transport, from public to private transportation. At times, users may use public transport and at other times private vehicles, but managing the demand across the entire transport network is paramount to ensuring people have a seamless travel experience. We acquired NextBus to deploy real-time passenger information systems, ensuring bus users always had the most up-to-date travel information for their journeys. The acquisition was followed by another: ITMS from the Serco group, forming the basis of our traffic management solution business.”
“Since then, our capabilities for traffic management grew from deploying solutions for London, Ireland and Scotland to working with the control operations center in Sydney and managing the transport network to move people and goods around the city intelligently. But we knew artificial intelligence and machine learning were fundamental ingredients in driving intersection management solutions and delivering optimized traffic flows in a town for all road users, pedestrians, cyclists, buses, and vehicles, so we invested in Trafficware and GRIDSMART in late 2018/early 2019.”
“Until recently, Cubic was very focused on fare collection for megacities, but we wanted to use our five decades of experience and enable agencies of all sizes to deliver a reliable transit experience for their communities. January 2021 saw the birth of Umo, our cloud-based SaaS platform that streamlines payments, making them more accessible and equitable for transit agencies and riders. The SaaS model allows Umo agencies to meet evolving transit needs with regular feature releases and improvements that grow with the agencies without added costs.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Newsome cited:
— “Developed, installed, and maintained public ticketing systems in many of the world’s largest public transport cities, including London, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Greater Sydney and Southeast Queensland.
— Cubic transformed travel by introducing the first multimodal closed-loop ticketing system in Europe in the early 2000s.
— Cubic has a long-standing partnership with Transport for London (TfL), and has celebrated more than 20 years of the Oyster card system and 10 years of contactless payments.
— Deployed one of the first account-based ticketing systems in the U.S. through the Chicago Ventra system.
— The Brisbane, Australia partnership has been motoring for two decades after the Queensland government tapped Cubic to build the go card system in 2003.
— OMNY in New York was the first open-loop large-scale deployment in the US and the first deployment of concession pricing on contactless payments, a true feature of ABT.
— Cubic has deployed over 400 transit projects globally and has been established for five decades.
— Partnered with other leading innovators such as Apple and Google to develop industry-first mobile wallet cards in cities such as LA, San Francisco, Washington D.C., etc.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Newsome about customer success stories, he concluded:
“The Cubic Umo Platform brought contactless payments, account-based revenue collection, and fare capping to the Salem Area Mass Transit District in Salem, Oregon. The transit district is locally known as Cherriots, and with the introduction of Umo and the Umo Mobility smartphone app, residents can now pay for their commute using their smartphone or the reloadable Cherriots Tap Card.”
“OMNY has processed cards from all 195 countries that issue bank cards, and 68 percent of OMNY transactions are made by customers tapping digital wallets in phones and wearables. OMNY reached a pivotal milestone this year when the billionth fare was paid by tap.”
“In London, contactless payments have been so successful the UK government issued funding to have 53 stations outside London have access to that payment type to better create seamless journeys.”
“London Oyster celebrates 20 years of service: It was predicted that 17 million Oyster Cards would be issued over the 17-year contract, but the actual number is currently 140 million. The interesting part is not the number but the ‘why’ behind it. It is because initially, the technology was only meant for ticketing on buses and tubes, but in the past 20 years, it has absorbed everything that has come its way. From integrating all national rail (no easy feat), to all the new modes of transport offered by Transport for London, DLR, Riverboat, Emirates Cable Cart, and even the addition of the Elizabeth Line.”
