Fairtiq and the UK ticket to growth

In just 10 years, Fairtiq has established its solution across much of the European Economic Area. Did the United Kingdom add complexity as its first market outside that area?

Yes, although perhaps not in the way people might expect. Regulation in the UK is diverging somewhat from the EU, but the bigger difference is structural. In the UK, buses and rail are treated separately, both in policy and in operations. In Switzerland and most of the other European countries where we are already active, public transport is approached much more as a single system. On top of that, each country has its own business culture, and you have to be sensitive to how market entry works in each one.

Where did you start?

Shortly after the pandemic, the UK government published two reports: the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail and Bus Back Better. Both focused on making travel simpler and easier for passengers, especially across different modes of transport. Those reports showed a clear need and ambition to simplify ticketing and expand pay-as-you-go ticketing. That made it an obvious opportunity for us.

That sounds almost too easy. Was it really that straightforward?

Not at all. Hardly anyone in the UK knew Fairtiq, and the concept of automatic ticketing through a mobile app was still unfamiliar. What people did know was London’s integrated ticketing system based on bank cards, gates, and validators. That was the reference model, and for many in the UK the only proven example of integrated ticketing they were aware of. The challenge was to shift thinking towards a cutting edge alternative that is already live in multiple European countries and doesn’t rely on hardware.

Added to that, a general election in the UK resulted in a new government and therefore some changes to policies and priorities. It has taken three to four years to move from the two reports being published, to going live with an initial pilot project.

So it did take some convincing at first. How did you go about it?

The first step was to identify the people in the bus and rail sectors who were shaping policy, influencing decisions, and setting priorities. Then we engaged them directly. With the specialist knowledge of the UK market we had brought on board, we could start that by cold calling, supported by my industry contacts.

Our message was simple: you have a problem, and we have a way to solve it. We explained how Fairtiq differed from the London model: it could be implemented faster, at lower cost, and with a better passenger experience. 

Even so, were there still challenges?

Yes. Transport policy in the UK is devolved, so even when you gain traction in one area, that does not make your name known across the wider system. That is where Switzerland Global Enterprise made a real difference. With support from its office in the UK, we were able to reach the regional mayoral teams directly through letters and information. That helped raise our profile. In practice, the introduction came in at the top, cascaded down to the transport teams, and those teams then knew who to contact. 

Besides the official support you received from the Swiss Business Hub UK, were there other ways of building support for the Fairtiq solution?

Yes, because in the UK there is increasing awareness of the quality of Switzerland’s public transport and a willingness to learn lessons from it. Thomas Ableman, former Strategy and Innovation Director at Transport for London, became a strong advocate of automatic ticketing after earlier exchanges with Swiss public transport stakeholders. He later helped build support for the “Mini Switzerland” project in Derbyshire, which aims to bring together Swiss-style timetable coordination and simplified ticketing in a UK setting. We supported that effort from the beginning with surveys, Swiss information, and input from our founder. For us the aim is not to test whether the model works, because it is already proven in Switzerland, but to demonstrate that those proven Swiss solutions can also work in the UK.

For a Swiss SME, working with large public-sector and quasi-public organizations is not easy. Do you have any recommendations for peers?

We have expanded into more than a dozen international markets and have found an approach that works well.First, make sure there is a strong product-market fit. You need to understand your own strengths, research the market properly, and be clear about how your solution supports the country’s priorities. Second, being proud of your Swiss roots can help. Switzerland has a strong international reputation for quality, and that extends to the way its companies do business. And finally, you need a real understanding of the market you are trying to enter. Without that, it is very difficult to position your offering in the right way.