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desalasworks presents:

a portfolio of work by steven de salas

LetMePark

Building smart cities by connecting vehicles with their environment.

Founding Engineer

Steven had a pivotal role designing and building the core platform infrastructure for this startup in the urban mobility space. Maximizing IT resource use and speed-to-market with low-cost, stable, high-performance infrastructure.

As the platform grew in complexity and demand, Steven became CTO in order to encompass the leadership of a growing technology team of engineers, designers and testers.

Backend Architecture & Integration

Integration with multiple third-party parking provider services, allowing real-time price and availability checks, bookings and automated parking notifications.

The skills used were: Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Build Automation, JavaScript, Node.js, API Development, MongoDB, DevOps, Docker, ECS, Gitlab, Security/Cryptography, Bash/Unix scripting, MQTT, Nginx, PCI Payment Processing (Paycomet TPV) and Test Automation.

Web & Mobile Hybrid App

Development and enhancements to a Vue.js (Nuxt) web app doubling up as a hybrid web-view app for iOS and Android platforms, allowing clients to carry their parking experience anywhere inside their pocket.

Voice Assistant Integration

Steven worked on integrating the Alexa Skill that allows users to search and book whilst driving their car.

This included providing all necessary backend APIs and authentication/user flows as well as the technology platform capable of live multi-provider search and bookings, including live monitoring.

Payment Processing

Steven also integrated the customer Credit Card capture and payment processing flows for both bookings and automated parkings.

Feedback

We were lucky to find Steven. He was able to work under time-pressure and with a constantly changing set of priorities to deliver much of the core IT infrastructure for our Mobility-based startup. Later growing in his role to encompass the leadership of a growing development team for our unique solution.

Apart from being disciplined, motivated and highly knowledgeable, he barely had much of an ego, always willing to help junior developers and ‘wear many hats’ as needed, explaining technical problems and opportunities in plain English to make sure that the leadership was informed at every step of the choices we had available to us.

MBTA mTicket

A 6 month cross-platform (iOS and Android) mobile app project for Masabi, a specialist mTicketing company based near London Bridge. The MBTA mTicket application was launched in the Android and iPhone app markets in November 2012, and was a complete success grossing $1 million of sold tickets in the Boston Rail network for the first ten weeks of operation.

MBTA mTicket in the Google Play store.

MBTA mTicket in the Google Play store.

Developing the Front End User Experience

The project focused on building the User Interface for the application, this was done as a HTML5 /JavaScript UI due to the inherent advantages in being able to share code across different platforms. During development, we regularly tested against Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Symbian WebOS and Windows Mobile.

MBTA mTicket Payment Walkthrough

The process for purchasing tickets is straight forward, no complicated steps or black magic.

To purchase a round trip ticket to/from Boston the steps are:

1) Click ‘Buy Tickets’
2) Choose a ‘From’ and ‘To’ Station from the list.
3) Choose a ‘Round Trip’ ticket
4) Choose an existing card (the app stores a payment key after the first time).
5) Enter the Card CVV

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6) Review your purchase
7) Press ‘Pay Now’
8) DONE!

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Once the transaction goes through, the ticket is loaded into the My Tickets section. You now have two round trips to Boston waiting for you.

These last few panels are a shot of your ticket. The rectangle at the top shows the current time, the time block moves back and forth, and the three blocks are multi-colored. The color scheme changes on a daily basis according to a scheme that the conductor knows. Once the ticket is used it changes into a grey scheme. The conductor when he approaches will generally glance at the screen, nod with a “thanks” and put a paper slip in the holder above your head. Done.

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MBTA mTicket in the News

These are some of the online articles that were published before and after launch:

Apr 23rd, 2012

MBTA and Masabi team up for first smartphone rail ticketing system in the US, launching in Boston this fall

Jul 12th, 2012

New York MTA announces smartphone-based ticketing trials aboard Metro-North Railroad


July 11, 2012

New Smartphone App Could Replace Railroad Tickets


Nov 12, 2012

MBTA & Masabi Launch US` First Smartphone Commuter Rail Ticketing System

Jul 11, 2012

Digital train tickets to replace paper for some NY commuters


November 27, 2012

mTicket: MBTA releases mobile ticketing app at South Station

December 04, 2012

mTicket: T reports $225,000 in mobile app ticket sales since November launch

January 15, 2013

mTicket sees $1 million in commuter line sales


November 21st, 2012

What Bostonians Are Thankful For

November 27th, 2012

Mobile Ticketing Coming to MBTA Boats & More Commuter Trains, Riders Can Purchase Monthly Passes


Customer Respose

The MBTA mTicketing app went on to become a huge success shortly after launch. Customers reported a ‘seamless experience’ with ‘great usability’, ‘very convenient’, ‘neat & efficient’ etc.

These are some of the responses the MBTA customers tweeted shortly after launch: