New admin user account management tools in Passenger Cloud

Today, good information security practices on the Passenger product have been made even more accessible with the release of new admin user account management tools in Passenger Cloud, the system behind Passenger’s mobile apps and website products.

As part of information security management systems, such as ISO 27001, regular user access checks are vital when staff leave the business or change jobs, removing no longer needed roles and following the principle of least privilege (PoLP). This is to ensure that system vulnerabilities are mitigated and that new admin users have the correct level of training to manage their respective areas of the customer experience that Passenger Cloud drives.

Operator teams can now easily review staff accounts and ensure no unused accounts remain active from the system itself. Previously, this regular task would have required contacting Passenger’s Help Desk for assistance. Our Help Desk team would manage the process by providing a list of users and removing or updating any changed accounts.

Passenger Cloud has been designed around the specific capabilities that power the customer experience, each managed by different roles within operator teams: Customer Service agents manage customer enquiries; Network Planners manage timetable data; Commercial staff manage the ticket product catalogue and associated pricing; and so forth. Access to respective areas is restricted, and comprehensive training is provided to ensure that the overall customer experience is managed to a consistently high standard for passengers.

Since Passenger Cloud launched in 2016, our Customer Success and Help Desk teams have overseen the creation of new admin user accounts. This strategic decision has long been key to the high-performing mobile apps we deliver daily for our customers and their riders. By enforcing that new admin accounts are created this way, we have been able to ensure that a member of our team fully trains new users. The training is critical to ensure that staff feel confident they have everything they need to do their job, whether managing website content, updating network data, posting disruption alerts, adding vehicle information or dealing with customer enquiries about mobile app tickets.

We recognised early on that Passenger Cloud admin users changed regularly as staff were promoted or redeployed within the business to take on new projects. Whenever someone picked up new responsibilities, we wanted to ensure they felt completely prepared. Not only are we providing software — a mobile app solution for riders — but we are also providing high-quality training to the people who manage it. This training would often be tailored to staff based on their experience and literacy in managing digital channels.

Without supporting those staff, the real cost to the operator and its reputation may be losing the trust of its customers — the people using Passenger apps to catch buses and rely, every day, on the information flowing from the Passenger platform.

With the changes live this week, operators can quickly review staff roles and revoke access to Passenger Cloud anytime and any day of the week without needing support from the Passenger Help Desk. Its launch comes ahead of a gear change in training delivery at Passenger, which our new online training platform, Passenger Academy, will support from February 2024.

Operator staff with the correct permissions can see all staff with access to Passenger Cloud alongside a list of their roles directly from the Passenger Cloud dashboard.

To help operators efficiently audit access to Passenger Cloud, a list of current staff members and their roles can also be exported as a Comma-separated values (CSV) file, which is useful when there is a high number of admin user accounts.

These changes are an ongoing investment in enabling information security practices across Passenger products. If you have any questions on the release of these new admin user account management tools or the product in general, please get in touch.