I imagine there is quite a difference between working with a city in an industrialized country compared to cities in emerging and developing countries where a lot of people don't have access to a smart phone. True, the concentration of smartphones in developed countries is much higher. Plus mobile phone data volume in emerging and developing nations is not as high. Almost no one has 3G. This is important to keep in mind if your goal is to have people transmit data via their phones. One solution here is to work with a mobile phone company so Ally app users don't have to access their data package for the app. This might sound utterly absurd to people who always have access to the complete net at all times. It makes a huge different in Mexico City though. People start using the app immediately when they discover it won't eat up their data.

Have you also noticed a difference in how the app is accepted and used?

Absolutely. Public transport has pretty much remained the same for the past 100 years. This decade will be the one in which structural changes are made. And I think that new, innovative public transport products will not come from developed countries where billions have already been invested in the existing systems that also need to be serviced and maintained. Pressure to act is not as high. If you look at a city that is close to complete collapse because of rising urbanisation though, local administrations are much more willing to experiment. Citizens are also more open to trying out and accepting new solutions. I feel certain that we will see a lot of new systems in emerging markets over the next 10-20 years that the industrialised countries will slowly begin to adopt as well.

Your newest idea is to start using your technology for the use of civilian drones in large cities. What is the plan here?

The idea was inspired by our meetings with large retailers. Our concept is to allow package delivery drones to briefly land on buses and take advantage of their speed for a while. When the bus turns in a different direction, the drone simply takes off again and hops onto the next bus. Our interactive maps tell us which bus is taking which route and when, so we could provide the drone with exact information about which bus to land on. We could calculate the optimal route for the drone.

Bus-hopping for drones. Why would that be faster then if the drone flew directly to its destination?

Not faster, but more efficient. Drones have limited battery capacity and as such limited range. Transporting the battery itself is a power-drain as well. If a drone has less battery weight to transport, it can fly further and transport more payload. It would also be a way to limit air traffic. The drone would automatically land on buses in motion. Our data would help us calculate the landing precisely. This is the basic concept. It will take us a while to work it out. A lot of questions have to be answered: legal issues, insurance questions, how to prevent packages from being stolen. And people ride on the roofs of buses in many countries, so that is an issue too. There are a lot of challenges awaiting us.