Vontas, a leading provider in delivering Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its inception. Since its launch, Vontas has maintained their focus on ITS, and invested in its products and people.
Vontas was created in April 2021 as a new business division of Trapeze Group, to focus on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) for bus and rail, including Yard Management and Payment. In the past year, Vontas has been successful in implementing their product suite with transit agencies across North America, announcing strategic partnerships, forming new divisions, and continuing to develop new and current products.
“We have completely re-organized our ITS business to be fully focused on customer and market-driven innovation. We continue to make significant investments into modernizing our products while supporting our current customers and their mission-critical system,” said Peter Aczel, General Manager, Vontas. “We have also made significant investments into our team, hiring seasoned industry experts, and growing our team to 85+ dedicated employees.”
In September 2021, Vontas announced joint initiatives with two separate transit agencies: Fort Worth Transportation Authority (“Trinity Metro”) and Central Ohio Transit Authority (“COTA”).
Trinity Metro began implementing Vontas’ industry-leading Intelligent Transportation System, TransitMaster, which provides passengers with real-time access to paratransit vehicles, fixed route vehicles, and trains. TransitMaster integrates with Trinity Metro’s Automated Passenger Counters, Farebox, and Signage, and is the only solution to offer seamless native integration with the Trapeze Group solutions that Trinity Metro already uses. With this solution, Trinity Metro has experienced significant time savings with data shared between applications.
The joint initiative with COTA integrates Vontas’ market-leading Yard Management software into a second garage at the Central Ohio Transit Authority. This collaboration allows COTA to track their fleet in real-time, improve maintenance workflows, and increase on-time bus pull-outs. Yard Management helped COTA achieve improved yard safety, higher productivity rates, and increased rider satisfaction.
In addition to Yard Management, COTA upgraded their remaining bus fleet to Vontas TransitMaster V8 Integrated Vehicle Logic Units (IVLU) hardware. COTA’s upgrade to V8 IVLU hardware seamlessly connects multiple vehicle systems to provide real-time data and communication capabilities on the road. By integrating other Vontas solutions such as Vehicle Intelligence, Yard Management, and TransitMaster, COTA gets a full picture of how their entire fleet of vehicles are operating.
In November 2021, Vontas announced their launch of the New Product Initiatives group and were officially introduced to the transit industry at APTA Expo in Orlando, Florida.
The New Product Initiatives Group is a division inside the organization, dedicated to the establishment, advancement, and innovation of customer-focused ITS products. Since its inception, the New Product Initiatives group has focused on bringing additional products to market based on evolving industry trends and customer needs. By collaborating closely with the Product Management groups who support existing products and utilizing DevOps practices, Vontas aims to build, implement, and integrate these solutions back into its core business to drive sustained long-term organic growth.
Vontas had their official launch at APTA Expo in Orlando, Florida, where they showcased their product suite and demonstrated products in real-time for transit agencies. Vontas’ General Manager, Peter Aczel, was interviewed live at APTA Expo for the transit business podcast, Transit Unplugged, and hosted a networking event for customers and agencies.
In February 2022, Vontas announced a new project with StarMetro in Tallahassee, Florida. StarMetro is set to upgrade to Vontas’ Intelligent Transportation System, TransitMaster. In addition, February 2022 Vontas achieved project acceptance for the Bus USA project with the Maryland Transit Administration (“MTA”) in Baltimore.
In March 2022, Vontas with Trapeze Group hosted the annual ThinkTransit Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. ThinkTransit brought together over 300 transit professionals from across North America for three days of hands-on learning. Peter Aczel opened the conference, focusing on Vontas’ products, core values, the ITS product roadmap, and the investment in our products and people.
On day two of ThinkTransit, Vontas’ Vice President of New Product Initiatives, Sebastian Vaitus, shared Vontas’ direction for product development. ThinkTransit was incredibly successful and marked Vontas’ first in-person customer event since 2019.
Throughout 2021 and early 2022, Vontas’ focused on adding more products to its portfolio, laid the groundwork to ensure that products were more modular, and leveraged an agile delivery approach for Trinity Metro. When looking at what the future holds for Vontas, Peter Aczel said, “This year, we are working on exciting changes in our product strategy across our portfolio that will bring further focus and investment in our technology offerings, including our current products and new product initiatives.”
In the year since its establishment, Vontas has stood out in the transit industry with outstanding accomplishments in implementing ITS, Yard Management, and Payment solutions for agencies across North America. Vontas looks forward to celebrating more milestones in the year ahead.