Asia Mobiliti in tie-up with UK tech firm

Asia Mobiliti CEO and co-founder M Ramachandran and Journey Alerts CEO Alex Froom shake hands during the MOVE London conference. On the right is Journey Alerts’ chief technology officer, Daniel Chick.

PETALING JAYA: Asia Mobility Technologies Sdn Bhd (Asia Mobiliti) has partnered UK tech company Journey Alerts to jointly develop a platform to open up public transport in regions of high demand but poor access to services.

Asia Mobiliti, which is the subject of a Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission investigation, said the service does not use or require a transport app.

Instead, it said, it focuses on communicating with passengers exclusively on channels they already use such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Viber.

In a statement today, Asia Mobiliti said that with many transport apps not easily accessible or highly used in low- and middle-income countries, engaging the millions of daily active users on messaging channels will unlock “previously unachievable global reach” for the service.

The collaboration was first announced at last week’s MOVE London conference, a tech mobility event. The launch follows a successful UK-Malaysia jointly funded project in Malaysia in which Journey Alerts and Asia Mobiliti combined to deliver personalised passenger information for public transport via Asia Mobiliti’s Trek platform.

“Our mission of enabling mobility-as-a-service in low and middle-income countries by digitising and integrating all modes of transport in a city and addressing the first & last-mile connectivity issues with demand-responsive transit (DRT) necessitates a new approach to passenger messaging delivery,” said Asia Mobiliti’s CEO M Ramachandran.

Ramachandran, who is the husband of youth and sports minister Hannah Yeoh, has been in the headlines after various parties highlighted the possibility of preferential treatment and conflict of interest in Selangor’s selection of the company and another firm to run a nine-month proof of concept for a DRT project in the Klang Valley.

While the company and the state government have maintained that everything is above board, the MACC has launched an investigation into the matter.