Public transit ridership is recovering slowly and has reached an average 80% of the pre-pandemic level. However, it is important to highlight that different countries are in different recovery phases. Secondly, the riders traveling patterns have changed and there are more riders on weekends, and peak hours are flattened. Public transit agencies need to adjust to this changing behavior. On the other hand, transit agencies around the globe are facing challenges with staffing as there is a shortage of drivers and workers. Thus, the role of planning and scheduling has become more critical to provide services to riders. Transit agencies will face new challenges with the induction of electric buses as the buses will have a limited range. Thus, the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning will allow transit agencies to build dynamic schedules. Further, on-demand mobility can complement fixed-line services. This episode will share the story of Optibus and how the company is helping to digitalize public transit agencies.

Amos Haggiag is the CEO and co-founder of Optibus, a cutting-edge software platform that powers complex public transportation operations in more than 2,000 cities worldwide. Before co-founding Optibus in 2014, Amos led the development of large-scale personalization engines as a senior software development engineer at Microsoft and designed machine learning algorithms at Siemens. He is the recipient of several prestigious math and technology awards, including the Intel Prize (for software engineering), the Elkin Prize (for information technology) and the Wolf Prize (for mathematics).