JERUSALEM–For those who are familiar with Israel, there exists a strange discrepancy in the culture of the Jewish State. Israel, with a population of approximately 7.6 million, is the “StartUp Nation”–there are about 4800 of these fledgling companies in Israel, and venture capital, essential for starting a company, out-invests the United States by a margin of over $100 per person. Israel’s high-tech industry is also very advanced, and most Intel processors in recent laptop and tablets are manufactured in the “StartUp Nation.” Yet, for all of its technological advances, the Jewish State is well known for its nightmarish bureaucracy–from receiving a passport to cancelling a credit card to even paying for a bus ticket, nothing there is simple, and Israeli standards of customer service ensure that clients feel embarrassed for even having the thought of contacting a call center.
While Israeli bureaucracy is not likely to change in the near future, there is a new Israeli startup that developed an application to alleviate the headache of buying a bus ticket. HopOn, the brainchild of Ofer Sinai, David Mezuman, and Itzik Mizrahi, aims to make the boarding a bus in Israel easier by removing the interaction with the driver entirely.
HopOn uses a revolutionary ultrasonic system to transmit bus-line information to a passenger’s smartphone, allowing the passenger to choose his/her destination (if necessary), and pay the bus fare from a stored credit card or PayPal. Upon reaching the front of the sometimes lengthy boarding queue, the passenger only needs to show the automatically generated payment receipt to the driver, and then is onboard, having painlessly paid the fare without having to worry about change, smartcard balances, and unpleasant interactions with grumpy Israelis.
HopOn initially ran its testing through hundreds of invited users, and was only available on the Tel Aviv-based Dan bus company. Since then, the application has come out of testing and now works on almost all public transportation companies in Israel.
Moti Maimon, a project manager for Dan, said that the Israeli public transport company was very happy to work with the startup on its initial testing, and is pleased that HopOn is now available to the public: “We see a great advantage in working with HopOn: it saves us money, simplifies the boarding process, and gives our customers a great ticketing and payment platform.”
HopOn has become a key part of the travels of both tourists and natives with its system’s recent rollout to the Jerusalem Light Rail. Previously, passengers would need a Rav-Kav (smart farecard) to take advantage of the 90-minute bus-to-light-rail transfer that Jerusalem’s public transportation system is based on; those not in possession of said card would end up needing to pay upwards of two or three fares per person on any trip. Now, with the advent of HopOn, transfers can be as easy as showing a bus driver a payment confirmation after transferring from the light rail, saving passengers literally tens of shekalim per trip.
HopOn’s initial rollout is intended for run-of-the-mill public transportation passengers who wish to save time and not worry about small change while traveling. But the app’s design makes it clear that its endgame is much more ambitious than that: HopOn currently has the capabilities to include fare discounts (senior, child, student) when paying, and even eventually be used to redeem periodic bus passes (chofshi chodshi, in Hebrew). For now, though, these features are grayed off as “coming soon,” keeping us HopOn users waiting for the app to become even more helpful.
HopOn’s founders are planning to bring that technology to other countries to help alleviate the stress of paying bus fares around the globe. They have reported that they have recently closed deals in Monaco on the French Riviera, and expect their application to soon work with four different transportation companies there. They have also expanded their app to include bike rentals, inaugurating this service with Tel Aviv-based Tel-Ofen bike rental group. Before long, many of HopOn’s features could very well make their way to the United States, helping to ease the burden of paying for public transportation and bike rentals.
HopOn is compatible with all Android, Windows, and Apple phones and can be downloaded from the respective app store or from hopon.co.
By Tzvi Silver
