Solent Transport has announced the successful conclusion of the five year Department for Transport funded trial of Breeze, the UK’s first fully integrated, multi city Mobility as a Service (MaaS) transport app. The trial concludes on Friday 31 October 2025, with the app platform becoming unavailable for users from then on.
Designed to simplify travel journey planning, booking, and payment across the Solent region, the trial has exceeded expectations in both scale and impact, with residents across Portsmouth, Southampton, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight benefiting from a consolidated app offering access to all the region’s travel services.
Breeze delivered a seamless user experience for travellers by bringing together local buses, trains, e-scooters, e-bikes, ferries, and more into a single digital platform. Solent Transport adopted an agile, evidence-based design approach that continuously refined the app based on real user data and feedback.
Trial Highlights & Achievements
• Breeze has been widely adopted across the region, surpassing more than 50,000 downloads by 2025.
• Behaviour change and sustainable travel: Research conducted by the University of Portsmouth showed that 65% of Breeze users used the app at least once a week, Breeze users reduced their car use by 3%, increased their use of public transport by 2.5% and were on average 76% more aware of the transport options available to them.
• Industry recognition: Breeze has earned 7 nominations and 5 national awards from institutions including the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation, Intelligent Transport Systems UK and the IEEE Smart Mobility Challenge.
• Fast-track rail integration: Integrating rail ticketing from decision to first sale took just 1.5 years, against an industry norm of 3–4 years.
• User-friendly travel experience: With real time bus tracking, e-scooter and e-bike unlock, and in-app payment, Breeze reduced the need for multiple apps and simplified multimodal travel.
What next?
Following the conclusion of the trial, Solent Transport will present a comprehensive evaluation report documenting the outcomes, learnings, and recommendations to the Department for Transport and its local authority partners.
We will share best-practice insights with transport authorities and mobility app developers across the UK via the project webpage https://solent-transport.com/ftz/breeze/ and through direct engagement.
Solent Future Transport Zone Programme Manager, Tim Forrester reflected,
“We’re grateful to the Department for Transport for entrusting Solent Transport and its local authority partners with the funding to explore and innovate over the last five years, both with Breeze and other projects in the Solent FTZ. We’re confident that the learnings and successes from this trial will support the new Mayoral Combined Authority to deliver even greater improvements to transport services across the region. We’re excited about what will come next.”
For more information about Breeze and to understand the next steps visit www.breezeuk.app