This episode of Transit Voices features host Ben Whitaker in conversation with Satinder Bhalla, President and Co-founder of TransSIGHT, a transit services company and IT integrator that works with all sorts of different transit agencies joining together their data.

They dive into the critical role of data in transforming transit services and how agencies can pivot from providing standard services to those actually desired by passengers.

“I've felt like there has always been a friction between the riders and what is being offered,” says Satinder, “which makes it totally inconvenient. So that was indeed the one key element for us to solve as part of TransSIGHT.”

Satinder and Ben discuss the difference between providing products which an agency uses to fulfil its needs, or customized solutions, which take much more work to provide based on an agency’s wish list and how to move towards products.

This will happen “Only if the agencies start to look to procure something more like a solution,” says Ben. “Because I think the habits in the industry… and the cost of a procurement process, makes people feel that they've got to fill everything on their Christmas list in, if Christmas only comes once every ten years. The tendency to fill out all possible requirements for the next five to 10 years means it's very hard to get a productized solution, and it almost always results in something customized.”

In their conversation, they also discuss APIs, how the US might catch up and even overtake Europe when it comes to new ways of paying for transit, and the procurement for small businesses. You’ll also hear why, when it comes to Satinder’s boondoggle, it has to be Chat GPT.