“Hey google, Who’s In Charge?”
Currently, the NHS Test & Trace app is entirely confidential. When it pings to tell you to self-isolate, no-one else will ever know - including the NHS.
Do you think that you should be able to opt-in, voluntarily, to allow the NHS to find out?
Well, it doesn’t matter what you think. Or, indeed, what the British Government thinks. For it was decided by Google and Apple, privately and without accountability to anyone, that privacy trumps utility and no Government globally would be able to use Apple or Google’s phone operating systems for contact tracing if they included even an option of providing data to public health authorities. As Google and Apple provide the operating systems for 100% of new mobile phones, that was that.
Today’s post looks at the consequences of public transport operators having handed their customer relationships to third parties, including Google. Next week we expand to look at the impact of the rise of Chinese suppliers of systems, especially smart cities.
Who’s in charge here?
Apple and Google had Governments over a barrel on contact tracing because Governments needed some bespoke work done to enable Bluetooth-based contact tracing to work.
But in other areas, the tech giants are taking control as a result of others vacating the market. And none more so than in public transport.
If you want to search for a product in an online supermarket, you go to the supermarket’s website. That is good for the online supermarkets. If I search for beans at Tesco and Ocado, both of them can use their full range of cookies to track what I look for and to encourage future purchase. If I subsequently sign-in, I’m likely to stay signed-in, giving total visibility of all my searches and purchases.
By contrast, the front window to public transport has become Google Maps. Google share no data with public transport operators, meaning the operator has no visibility of who its customers are or what they want. Citymapper is probably the other market leader and they might provide some data back to operators at a price; but it won’t be customer data and it won’t enable a relationship.
In rail, it is Trainline that has a virtual monopoly on customer relationships.
This has happened because operators failed to invest in apps and websites that their customers might actually wish to use.
Close down the world
Now, one way of dealing with this would be to prevent alternative sources of information from existing. After all, Google gets its data from somewhere. If bus operators didn’t have to share timetable (and now pricing data), then none of this would happen. Similarly, Trainline is only able to provide information as a result of data from the RDG. One solution could be to pull up the drawbridge and get rid of the rivals. “Kill open data!” you might cry.
But this would be a terrible idea. Given the lack of innovation from operators, thank heavens that Google, Citymapper and Trainline do exist. From the perspective of the overall market share of public transport, the fact that consumers can at least plan a journey on user-friendly UI (user interface) is essential. Trainline, Citymapper and Google provide a vitally important role in setting a benchmark that others should be able to exceed. The problem is that no-one attempts to exceed it.
Aviation is an interesting comparator. There is a vast ecosystem of booking solutions but that doesn’t stop most bookings being made directly with airlines. Why? Because they’ve continued to develop and invest in their own solutions.
But, to an extent, even though they’d be wrong, I rather wish the operators were trying to get Google Maps shut down. At least they’d be doing something. It would at least suggest that they care. But, instead, the fact that they have lost their relationship with many of their own customers to tech giants, VC-backed startups and private listed companies seems not to matter to them.
Why does it matter?
As more elements of the journey become digitised, it will become more important that a digital relationship can be maintained with the travelling customer. This covers all the traditional elements such as journey planning and booking but, increasingly, other elements of the journey such as crowding, disruption, dynamic integration with other modes and bundling. If the operator excludes themselves from these elements, they lose the insight necessary to do them well. The digital giant that takes them on will not have the operational insight to use them well either, and the result will be lower public transport market share than would otherwise be the case.
It’s not too late
FirstGroup is awash with cash, having just sold First Transit. By October, every bus business in Britain will be expected to have a local Bus Improvement Plan. A really great app would be something for the owning groups to bring to the table in those discussions. Why doesn’t one of the owning groups set itself the task of creating an app so good that customers skip Google Maps and go straight to them?
