Vodafone and IBM to provide new tech to National Express

Tech giants 813 Vodafone and 62 IBM have signed an eight-year deal to equip 1002 National Express coaches with cloud and digital services to improve safety.

Vodafone Business and IBM joined forces in January to offer customers access to technologies for integrating multiple clouds.

Debbie O’Shea, group chief information officer for National Express, says: “This partnership enables us to move to a cloud environment giving us a future-proofed platform with increased flexibility that will better support our business.”

The venture will modernise National Express’ IT estate by moving to IBM Cloud and implementing a hybrid cloud strategy, allowing the company to manage multiple clouds in different locations. Additional security and risk management will be added to protect the transport operator’s technology infrastructure.

Vodafone says this activity will enable National Express to develop flexible payment options and always-connected vehicles.

Looking ahead, the venture will give the bus firm access to other cloud services and technologies such as 5G, Internet of Things, edge computing and analytics.