VIDEO INTERVIEW: The likes of Uber and Lyft are having little impact on the need for global cities to “upgrade and increase the use of mass transit services”, according to Ben Whitaker, co-founder of Masabi.

Masabi develops mobile ticketing services for public transport, designed to replace an age old system where people have to buy tickets or top up cards from physical facilities using cash to use mass transit services.

According to Whitaker, ‘mTicketing’ allows “cities to upgrade themselves” by getting double the amount of people through stations  “without swinging a wrecking ball, thus saving authorities billions of dollars on engineering required to upgrade infrastructure”.

Speaking to Mobile World Live, Whitaker said the innovations coming from companies like Uber, Lyft and Rideshare “will never be able to cope with that size of population flow in and out of cities”.

He, however, welcomed the rise in popularity of these companies, suggesting they served to wake up not only city authorities, but people who are a little more conservative, about the opportunities that now exist in using mobile.

He believes public transit ticketing has the potential to work like Uber, where a mobile device can facilitate a journey, and payments are facilitated by technology.

“Mobile ticketing does the same thing,” he said. “You take a ride using your phone, and you don’t have to spend any extra time facilitating a transaction, finding money or finding somewhere to buy a ticket.”

In the interview, Whitaker also addressed the challenges that exist in convincing city authorities to adopt mTicketing.

To watch the full interview, click here.