• Citymapper, a leading transport planning app, appointed Will Peterson as its chief operations officer (COO). 

• Before joining Citymapper, Peterson was co-founder of SilverRail Technologies, a provider and distributor of ticketing systems for the rail industry, which was sold to the Expedia Group in 2017. In addition, he has been in senior roles in ITA Software (airline IT provider, now part of Google) and National Leisure Group (travel agency for cruises and holidays).

• Citymapper CEO Azmat Yusuf, commenting on the appointment, stated that they hope to leverage Peterson’s experience in the travel tech space to scale Citymapper’s enterprise offerings.

• Apart from its free-to-download travel app for commuters, Citymapper also provides software developer kits (SDKs) and application program interfaces (APIs) for cities and transport operators to develop custom-made white-label mobility solutions.  

Analyst QuickTake: Given the challenges with the B2C transport planning app revenue model, which follows a freemium or pay-per-use model, many startups in this space have pivoted toward providing B2B solutions, which typically follow subscription-based or project-based models. Citymapper, being one of the most widely used transport planning apps, has not been immune to these challenges, as evident in its revenue decline in 2020 and the introduction of Citymapper Club—a subscription-based service for its travel app in February 2020.