Cubic Transportation Systems, headquartered in San Diego, has been awarded a contract to supply a real-time passenger information system for San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's light rail and bus network. Cubic's additions will be numerous, including more accurate prediction of arrival times, multimedia LCD signs at rail platforms and bus stops, on-board digital signage, map views of vehicle locations, transfer connection predictions, directions to alternative routes, estimates of vehicle occupancy, and updated information about diversions, delays and service interruptions.  

As you can see from the Patent Radian® below, this is a crowded field, with multiple large companies filing patent applications in the past few years. However, Cubic's experience in ticketing combined with transportation data analytics appears to be giving it an advantage over IBM, Ford, Toyota and Here Global.  

Cubic has also grown through acquisitions, most recently Trafficware (2018) and GRIDSMART Technologies (2019). We should expect this trend to continue, as the smart transportation market is growing at 22.5% CAGR. However, with a market capitalization of only $2 Billion, Cubic could itself become an acquisition target for the larger players, because owning the front office (ticketing) gives real-time data on customer behavior that can inform the other traffic mod

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