Meet Joos: The phone-charging company enabling digitalisation across the transport sector

Joos provides a ground-breaking phone charging solution, allowing customers to rent a power bank from one charging station, charge on the move, and drop off at any other station in the network. Since its launch in 2019, Joos has dominated the public phone charging market, bringing its innovative solution to notable venues in the transport sector, such as one of the busiest stations in London.

Since Covid-19, e-ticketing, boarding passes and mobile wallets have all rapidly increased in popularity, increasing pressure on passenger’s mobile phone battery. While passenger numbers are slowly returning to pre-Covid numbers across the industry, passengers are increasingly demanding that transport operators provide an adequate solution to a fundamental need – keeping the mobile phone charged. As such, Metrocom, Lisbon, have become the first subway system / Underground Transport Network to offer an on-the-move mobile phone charging solution.

We sit down with Josh & Hannz, Joos’ Co-Founders to find out more.

Josh Baah, Co-Founder

Hi Josh & Hannz, firstly, can you provide an overview of Joos charging solutions and how you cater to the needs of the transport sector? 

Put simply, we enable digitalisation – Joos offers power bank charging stations, where travellers can rent a portable charger from and drop it off at any other location with our stations. This can help reduce pressure on customer services, and station staff.

The ability to access a charging facility like ours also reduces the low battery anxiety of travellers. Through publicly available data, we know that many passengers use digital tickets & boarding passes. We’re even seeing the removal of paper ticketing entirely as digital becomes the norm. From a safety perspective too, Joos enhances the travel experience by allowing travellers to use their phones to stay connected with loved ones while travelling during late night hours.

What unique features or technologies set Joos charging solutions apart from other options available in the market?

Since our inception, we’ve always founded the business on a ‘safety-first’ approach. We adopted this approach when first developing the Joos Power Bank, ensuring we obtained the Apple approval to use the MFi (Made for iPhone/iPad certification) cable. This cable means our customers don’t get the annoying “this accessory is not supported” pop ups you get when using a non-verified Apple cable. Importantly, this gives our transport clients, who often are associated with public institutions, the peace of mind that they have partnered with a legitimate supplier.

This was all made possible by our dedicated tech team, who enable us to change and adapt quicker than other providers that white-label generic charging products from China. A recent development has been the integration of POS terminals, which we retrofitted onto our existing stations, which has significantly shortened the customer journey by allowing customers to quickly tap their card and grab a power bank.

How does Joos ensure seamless integration of its charging solutions into existing railway and airport infrastructure?

Our product portfolio is diverse, with different options for different environments and footfall. We can even customise them with clients’ branding and scale the number of charging stations up and down depending on usage/ footfall.
Our process is to collaborate closely with airport/ railway staff ahead of installation to ensure our stations are always located where there is maximum visibility and minimum disruption. From our experience, our collaborative approach effectively enhances the overall travel experience for our client’s passengers.

Can you share your key partnerships and recent developments of Joos in the transport industry?

In addition to launching Joos in Metrcom, Lisbon, we’re also proud to announce our partnership with Northern. Northern are one of the largest Transport Networks in the UK, operating over 500 stations across the North of England. We’re incredibly proud of this partnership and look forward to scaling out across the transport network.
We are also present in three major UK airports, notably including Bristol Airport, who we’ve just celebrated our two year anniversary. Since launching with Bristol we’ve doubled the number of stations we have on site, which has been great to see. 

What are some of the key challenges faced in implementing charging solutions within railway and airport environments, and how does Joos address these challenges?

Some of the biggest challenges with implementing new charging stations in these environments are related positioning, we seek to work with our clients to find a clear location for our stations.
For example, some train stations have outdoor spaces only. As a little spoiler, our tech division are working hard to develop an outdoor solution to serve even more customers.

How does Joos align with or help reaching the sustainability and net zero goals of its partners?

Joos recognises its influence and position within the market; therefore, we launched Joos Solar in 2023. In a world with a lot of greenwashing, we decided to address the problem right at the source – electricity generation and reducing the pressure on non-renewable national grids.
We offer our large client’s solar installations, from ground mounted solar panels, roof mounting and even car ports too. This, combined with our proprietary smart battery storage solutions allows for our clients to reduce their bills by up to 60% & generate the majority of their electricity from renewable energy. We also offer Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) or other financing options – meaning it can be cost free for our clients. Our existing 2024 pipeline alone will produce enough electricity to power over 100,000 homes!

Looking ahead, what trends or developments do you foresee shaping the future of charging solutions in railway and airport settings, and how is Joos positioned to adapt to these changes?

With evolving passenger needs linked to digital tickets, and more digitalisation occurring in the travel sector generally, we anticipate there will be an increasing need for solutions like Joos in major airports/ train stations. We are proud to have positioned ourselves to assist the travel sector in adapting to the challenges of the modern world through the introduction of our power bank kiosks.
Outside of this, our tech division are researching exciting future charging technology to ensure we’re always at the forefront of innovation in the sector. As the most reliable & established solution on the market – Joos is poised to lead public charging across the travel sector.