Most transport networks still run on software older than some of their passengers. Core reservation systems at major airlines date to the 1980s, and urban transit operators still dispatch buses with tools straight out of a 1997 IT department. Passengers now expect real-time updates, seamless payment, and predictive everything. The gap between what legacy infrastructure delivers and what people want is wide and getting wider. Here are five vendors actively closing it.

DXC Technology

DXC is not a startup pitching deck slides. Three of the four largest airlines in the world use their systems for critical passenger data. Lufthansa selected DXC for the Open API project. United Airlines brought them in for full-stack modernization: mainframe services, custom apps, fleet tracking.

What the transportation portfolio covers:

  • Digital twin for road infrastructure — live deployment with ISA Vías in Chile, modeling emergency scenarios across a highway serving 7 million vehicles per month
  • Predictive maintenance for rail and aviation MRO using IoT sensor feeds
  • Dynamic pricing and demand forecasting for carriers managing route capacity
  • Legacy PSS migration to cloud — passenger service systems are notoriously fragile to move; DXC does this without taking airlines offline
  • OT cybersecurity — transport operational technology was never designed to be internet-connected, and now it is

The MV Transportation case is worth reading. MV is the largest private paratransit provider in the US — their CIO described a situation where the dev team spent five years building software with near-zero monetization. DXC replaced that with modern tooling and a data science layer now driving competitive bidding.

Optibus (Israel)

Tel Aviv-based Optibus does one thing: public transport planning — scheduling, rostering, real-time dispatching. A mid-sized bus network has thousands of interlocking constraints (driver hours, vehicle availability, layover requirements, frequency targets) that no human scheduler can fully optimize.

Operators in 30+ countries use Optibus, including Transdev and First Transit. Case studies show 10–20% reductions in fleet requirements on optimized networks — direct capital and fuel savings.

Key features:

  • Cloud-native architecture — no on-premise migration required
  • Scenario modeling before committing to network changes
  • Real-time disruption management during incidents

Masabi (UK)

London-based Masabi built Justride — a fare payments platform that modernizes ticketing without replacing existing backend infrastructure. Live deployments include MBTA Boston and Las Vegas RTC.

The platform supports account-based ticketing, where fares are calculated after travel using capping logic — the same model behind London’s Oyster card. Masabi packages it for agencies that can’t afford TfL-scale bespoke development.

Platform capabilities:

  • White-label SDK so agencies keep their own app branding
  • Open-loop payment — tap-to-ride with a regular bank card
  • Account-based fare capping across journeys
  • API integration with existing agency backends

init SE (Germany)

Karlsruhe-based init SE has been building intermodal transport control systems since 1983. Their MOBILE-ITCS platform runs in Hamburg, Ottawa, Virginia, and Cape Town. The Hamburg HVV deployment unifies buses, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, and regional rail into one real-time picture — cross-modal visibility that most European cities are still working toward.

What they deliver:

  • ITCS for real-time fleet tracking and passenger information
  • CAD/AVL — computer-aided dispatch and automatic vehicle location
  • Electronic fare management across transit modes
  • Passenger information systems at stops and onboard

Cubic Transportation Systems (USA)

San Diego-based Cubic built the fare collection backend for London’s Oyster card. Also Sydney’s Opal card. Chicago’s Ventra. New York’s OMNY — the MTA’s full transition from MetroCard to contactless payments across the entire subway and bus network. These aren’t pilots. They process millions of taps daily with no tolerance for downtime.

Their Umo Mobility platform brings the same capability set to smaller agencies.

Core offering:

  • End-to-end fare collection for metro, bus, and light rail
  • Open-loop contactless — regular bank cards at turnstiles, no app required
  • Ridership analytics for capacity planning and ESG reporting

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Final Thoughts

Transportation software is unglamorous work. Nobody wins awards for a predictive maintenance pipeline. But these systems decide whether a train runs on time, whether a passenger can tap to board, and whether a road operator can simulate a crisis without closing the highway. DXC, Optibus, Masabi, init SE, and Cubic are each solving a different piece of that puzzle.