2010 – uTrack create a technology vision for National Express
uTrack signed our first commercial contract with National Express in July 2010 to provide our Historical Network Performance reporting solution to help monitor and improve the reliability and punctuality of the Services. By integrating with existing hardware and software, we were able to demonstrate a truly agnostic solution deployed at scale.
2011 – Real-Time Information
The next major milestone with National Express was moving to our Real-Time Network Performance solution that provided not only real-time reporting but also an API to feed real-time information to passengers. This was particularly challenging due to the complexity of handling route deviations and long distances between stops.
We also launched our first public facing solution with the launch of CoachTracker (v1.0) which was revolutionary for the Intercity Coach market.
2012 – CoachTracker Native Apps
As the usage of CoachTracker grew so did the increase in smartphone users so in uTrack launched a Native App version of CoachTracker for both on iOS & Android platforms, significantly improving the experience for Coach traveling customers.
2013 – UK Bus Awards: ‘Innovation’ & Move to the Cloud
Our innovation with CoachTracker was officially acknowledged by the industry when National Express and uTrack win the ‘Innovation’ award at the UK Bus awards 2013.
With a growing number of integrations and to facilitate even large deployments uTrack moves our infrastructure to a more efficient cloud-based solution and releases the second National Express Coach Tracker (version 2.0).
2014 – UK Coach Awards: ‘Innovation’ & Integration with 3rd Party Data
Continuing on the success at the UK Bus Awards, National Express and uTrack win the award for ‘Innovation’ at the UK Coach awards 2014.
uTrack also makes improvements to the real-time predictive data, which for the first time ever, integrates 3rd party information such as road traffic and weather.
Our success enables expansion into North America and even larger deployments of the technology.
2015 – National Transport Awards: ‘Excellence in Technology’ & Bluetooth Beacons
For the third year in a row the National Express & uTrack partnership wins an award, this time at the National Transport awards for ‘Excellence in Technology’.
uTrack continues to improve the accuracy and innovation of National Express services by introducing Bluetooth Beacon technology, a feature which allows stop data to be tracked even without GPS connection solving numerous problems of data loss. E.g. underground stops, rural stops, airport terminal stops.
2016 – New Dashboard & Customer Feedback
The new operational dashboard (Version 4.0) for National Express is released on the Vanguard platform. This system allows for new features such as incident tracking and SMS customer feedback.
Expansion also leads to the ability to integrate with school bus travel.
2017 – Dupe Tracking & 3rd Party Services
Dupe tracking introduced allowing National Express 3rd party contracts to integrate into the data tracking. This moves uTrack into the Urban bus tracking sector.
2018 – New Insights Solution with Passenger Punctuality
A new Insights Application is launched which allows for the next generation of real-time tracking and includes ETA’s combined with customer data to monitor how punctuality directly impacts the individual customer experience. Fundamentality changing how the industry views punctuality.
uTrack also move into driver and employee improvements with the introduction of the Employee App.
2019 – Route Map & Dynamic Timetables
This year saw a huge growth in the customer facing applications provided to National Express users with two new products coming to the market.
Route Map which allows customers to see the full spread of services available and plan their journey’s.
Dynamic timetables which allows customers to enter start and end journey stops and view all the service running on that network along with real-time update.
Away from the customer facing apps uTrack updated the Insights application to Version 2.0 to input new additional features to the already powerful tools found on insights as well as all of these highlights, uTrack’s UK team moved into the brand new ‘UK Office’ in Birmingham city centre, just down the road from the National Express headquarters at Digbeth (Birmingham) coach station.
2020 – 10 year Anniversary
uTrack marks the 10th anniversary of working with National Express, looking forward to the next decade of collaboration and innovation.
A new release of Route Map (Ver 2.0) is will be live shortly.
