CITYSWIFTER, a leader in data-driven decision-making for bus networks, has announced a major update to its data science and software platform and a rebrand of its business to CitySwift.

The CitySwift platform is used by three of the UK’s big five bus companies as well as regional bus operators and local authorities in the UK and across Europe. It uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to accurately predict bus journey times and passenger demand, ensuring on-time performance and increased passenger satisfaction.

The new version of the platform is cloud-native and consists of two products:

• SwiftInsight delivers user-friendly business intelligence dashboards that allow bus operators to instantly visualise vast amounts of data from their network; identify and act on trends; predict future growth areas using big data; set custom alerts; and track KPIs such as operating hours, load factor and passenger count.

• SwiftSchedule enables bus schedulers to automatically create optimised timetables that take into account traffic, events and hundreds of other external factors; understand the impact of disruption and changes to their schedules; and model multiple future scenarios.

To coincide with the launch, the business has rebranded and launched a new website.

Earlier this year, CitySwift completed a successful funding round led by Ryanair co-founder Declan Ryan’s Irelandia investments.

Brian, O’Rourke, CitySwift CEO comments: “Having already optimised urban bus networks in eight of the UK’s largest cities, this funding gives us an opportunity to help public transportation companies and authorities around the world make the most of their data, deliver on-time performance and increase passenger satisfaction.”

Mike McGearty, CitySwift chairman and former CEO of CarTrawler, comments: “CitySwift has the potential to be one of the next big success stories on the Irish tech scene. They already have an impressive list of major UK clients and advantageous changing market trends on their side.”

Bus industry veteran and former MD of Stagecoach UK Bus, Robert Montgomery, agrees. “The data insights created by Cityswift can deliver lower costs and happier passengers. Knowing you can offer enhanced reliability and greater passenger satisfaction at less cost through a better understanding of data opens up a whole new future for urban buses.”