The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the UK version of the EU Market Abuse Regulation (2014/596) which is part of UK law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, as amended and supplemented from time to time.

Journeo plc

("Journeo" or "the Group")

Final results for the year ended 31 December 2021

Journeo plc (AIM: JNEO), a leading provider of information systems and technical services to transport operators and local authorities, is pleased to announce its final results for the year ended 31 December 2021.

Financial headlines

·    Revenue increased 15% to £15.6m (2020: £13.6m)

·    Gross profit increased 13% to £6.0m (2020: £5.3m)

·    Underlying profit before tax increased 37% to £0.6m (2020: £0.5m)

·    Profit before tax £0.4m (2020: £0.2m)

·    Profit before tax excluding share-based payments was £0.5m (2020: £0.3m)

·    Cash and cash equivalents at 31 December 2021 £1.1m (2020: £1.3m)

·    Diluted earnings per share was 4.46p (2020: 2.26p)

Operational headlines

·    Increased adoption of Journeo technologies amongst the Group's fleet operator customers, now with over 4,000 vehicles connected to the Journeo Portal.

·    Continued investment in Research and Development delivering advancements in Driver Performance Monitoring and Ultra-Low Power displays technology.

·    Launched new Fault Management System (FMS) that allows support tickets to be automatically created from self-reporting display systems.

·    Extensive work with our supply chain to ensure availability of key components.

·    Initiation of Group-wide online seminars from industry and domain specialists (both internal and external) to ensure staff engagement and broaden staff knowledge of the markets in which we operate and technologies that we deliver.

·    Completed the first two of four phases of our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) study.

·    Extension of our cyber security credentials to include Cyber Essentials Approval, building upon our existing ISO 27001:2013 accreditation for Information Security Management.  All ISO accreditations retained.

Russ Singleton, CEO of Journeo plc, said: "Whilst 2021 proved to be another challenging year for public transport as passenger numbers remained significantly below pre-pandemic levels, Journeo showed great resilience throughout, securing a number of strategically important contracts, increasing revenues and profits, investing in research and development, and generating a significant and growing pipeline of opportunities.

"The cessation of the 'work from home' advice in January 2022 is regarded as a positive step towards encouraging people back to work and to use public transport, with both widely viewed as essential to the UK's economic recovery. The Government recognises that the recovery needs to support its net-zero carbon targets and is also dependent on public transport being seen as a viable and preferable alternative to personal-use vehicles. Key to this is improving the overall passenger experience, facilitated by investment in carbon-zero vehicles and technology that improves services through real-time insights.

"The Government has put in place a number of policies to support the revival of public transport, laying the groundwork for local authorities and transport operators to form Enhanced Partnerships as part of the National Bus Strategy for England, and to encourage further use of our railways from the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail.  Whilst funding levels may have been impacted by the COVID response, the Government continues to invest in town and city infrastructure and the transport networks that feed them.

"Opportunities are beginning to flow from the substantial funding and spending that is taking place, and local authority and fleet operator customers are re-engaging with renewed momentum. The increasing adoption of our IP and technologies reinforces our conviction that a customer-led, applied development strategy is the correct one; and moreover, that it is working. We remain focused on delivering ambitious growth plans."

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Notes to editors:

Journeo plc is a leading information systems and technical services business focussed on public transport and related infrastructure within towns, cities, airports, and local authorities. The Company works extensively with local government departments, combined authorities, and many of the largest multinational transport operators, supporting them as systems converge towards a more efficient and sustainable smarter-cities future.

The business currently comprises two segments:

·    Fleet operator solutions: CCTV video surveillance to improve passenger & driver safety, telematics for vehicle and driver performance monitoring, real-time communications for remote condition monitoring and automatic passenger counting.

·    Passenger transport infrastructure solutions: design, manufacture, installation, and management of hardware and software for electronic public transport information systems, in and around towns, cities, ferry terminals and airports which includes smart-ticketing and wayfinding.

In the last 4 years, the Company has invested over £5 million in research and development, enabling it to design and supply powerful new solutions for customers' complex requirements and the demands of modern public transport. With an Internet of Things ("IoT") approach and open standards, together with field-proven and reliable engineering, Journeo is able to offer flexible, scalable products and services that can integrate with existing technology while preparing for future advancements.

Chairman's Statement

Introduction

The Group continues to make solid progress in terms of financial performance and pace of development which is driving growth in the adoption of its hardware, software and services.

Journeo showed great resilience throughout 2021 increasing revenues, and profits, and has generated a significant and growing pipeline of opportunities through its strategic business development.

With passenger numbers still below pre-pandemic levels, the need to capture information on-board vehicles and provide real-time insights to operators, network managers and passengers will be one of the key factors in improving the overall passenger travel experience and encouraging people back to using public transport. 

Trading results

Group results for the year ended 31 December 2021 show underlying profit increased 36.6% to £634k (2020: £464k).

Overall sales increased by 15% to £15.6m (2020: £13.6m) and gross profit increased 13% to £6.0m (2020: £5.3m).

Fleet sales increased by 36% to £9.3m (2020: £6.8m) despite the lower passenger numbers continuing for the operators. Gross profit increased to £2.9m (2020: £2.1m) with margins maintained at 31% (2020: 31%).

Passenger sales decreased by 7% to £6.3m (2020: £6.8m). Margins improved to 49% (2020: 47%) due to a lower proportion of new system installations, and gross profit decreased slightly to £3.1m (2020: £3.2m).

Underlying administrative expenses increased to £5.6m (2020: £5.1m) as expenditure returned to pre-Covid-19 levels.

Profit before a charge for share-based payments and before tax was £0.5m (2020: £0.3m).

Profit before tax was £0.4m (2020: £0.2m.

Diluted earnings per share was 4.46p (2020: 2.26p).

Cash and cash equivalents closed the year at £1.1m (2020: £1.3m).

Markets

Last year proved to be another challenging year for transport as passenger numbers remained significantly below pre-pandemic levels.  According to the DfT annual bus statistics England, in 2020/21 local bus passenger journeys fell by 61% compared with 2019/20 and 54% of all journeys occurred in London. However, cessation of the UK Government's work from home advice in January 2022 is regarded as a positive step towards encouraging people back to work and to use public transport which is widely viewed as essential to the UK's economic recovery.

It is clear however, that the recovery must be focused on environmental benefits, where businesses and members of the public are encouraged to support the Government's aim to achieve Net Zero carbon by 2050.  Central to this goal is the adoption of public transport as a viable and preferable alternative to personal-use vehicles. 

The Government has put in place a number of policies to aid its target, laying the groundwork for local authorities and transport operators to form Enhanced Partnerships (EP) as part of the National Bus Strategy for England and to encourage further use of the UK's railways from the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail. 

It is encouraging to see the ongoing support from the UK Government to invest in town and city infrastructure and the transport networks that feed them.  Whilst funding levels may have been impacted by the Covid-19 response, opportunities are beginning to flow from the substantial funding and spending that is taking place.

One such Government scheme that is being well-received by our operator customers is the Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) scheme.  Whilst we are not direct beneficiaries of the scheme, it is reigniting the new bus sector of the market, that has been depressed for a number of years. 

There are an estimated 40,000 buses in the UK.  Just over half of the 32,000 buses on roads in England currently meet EURO VI standards and around 2% are currently zero emission vehicles, an indicator of the scale of investment that is needed over the coming years if the Government is to meet its environmental ambitions.

Historically, fleet operators have been replacing their vehicles at a rate of 5% to 7% per year.  Due to the reduced passenger numbers over the last few years, many fleet operators have chosen to extend the life of their existing vehicles, rather than purchase new vehicles. The Government has made commitments to 4,000 carbon zero buses by 2024 and released 'Bus Back Better', the National Bus Strategy for England, which requires local authorities to prepare Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs) and form Enhanced Partnerships (EPs) with fleet operators in order to access funding.

To move away from diesel powered buses to fleets of newer, cleaner vehicles, requires significant investment in both new vehicles as well as vehicle-charging infrastructure, whether electrical, hydrogen or a combination of both by manufacturers, local authorities and fleet operators.

A number of vehicle manufacturers are reporting significant interest for electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses.  In the medium term this may  lead to a positive cycle where reduction in production costs leads to further demand for new vehicles, and the products, software and services that Journeo supplies.

The Department for Transport's (DfT) unlocking of timetable and vehicle location data through the Bus Open Data Scheme (BODS) is also delivering new opportunities, allowing Journeo to design systems that can enhance the overall passenger travel experience where data was not previously available.

It is also encouraging to see a return of international travel. Having delivered solutions to London Gatwick Airport and London Stansted Airport, we were delighted to welcome London Heathrow Airport to the list of major international travel hubs that rely on our Passenger Transfer solutions. In 2020, prior to the pandemic, Heathrow was the third busiest airport in the world by international passenger traffic.  The project is now underway and, on completion will allow us to showcase our powerful airport bussing and passenger information solution a to an international audience. In the meantime, our airport solutions are gaining industry recognition for improvements to passenger travel experience and in supporting Airport Authorities meet their own service level agreements. 

Strategy

Our strategy is to seek, identify and solve current or anticipated future requirements within our target markets.  We form deep and long-lasting bonds in supply chains and with customers to understand where to apply research and development to build Intellectual Property (IP) that has real value to our customers and that may also scale worldwide.

Bids and tenders involving, or built around, our own IP and know-how, are a key differentiator that gives us a high-success rate in sales conversions and purchase orders. 

We invest in developing a broad range of solutions around our core technology that customers need now and that we anticipate they may need in the future.

The Journeo Portal is a highly secure web-based application launched to the market in late 2019. Journeo Portal saw the number of vehicles connected increase by 33% from 3,000 to 4,000 during 2021. Other orders and the three-year SaaS award from Arriva announced in November 2022 indicates that we will surpass the 10,000 connections milestone during 2022, where each connection is a bus, coach or train generating recurring income every month. This demonstrates that we have an attractive and commercially viable cloud-based offering, but also meaningful market penetration in CCTV and on-board IoT technology.

In addition to strong organic growth targets, the Company also maintains an active interest in seeking bolt-on acquisitions where the target businesses provide access to markets for our core technologies and capabilities.

Brexit and Covid-19

The Group has had to adjust to the changes brought about by major external events sequentially; first the pandemic and the subsequent resulting impacts on global supply chains.  

The largest direct impacts have been in our ability to reliably source high quality semiconductors and display components that are vital to building our solutions. Extended delivery timescales, rising costs in raw materials and labour continue to pose challenges for manufacture, assembly and installation engineering.

Where possible, we have mitigated against many of these risks through advanced purchase and stock holding, innovative design changes to avoid single source components, diverse procurement and strong supply chain relationships. 

Environmental, Social and Governance

The Group is committed to being a responsible member of the corporate community and has, over the course of the year, engaged with external consultants to set strategies and targets for our environmental, social and governance activities.  Our initial findings are included in the sustainability section of the 2021 annual report. Throughout the course of 2021, the Company maintained all ISO accreditations.

People

Throughout the pandemic, we followed the prevailing Government advice to help ensure the safety of all our people, who have shown great flexibility and dedication to ensure the continued support of our customers throughout. 

Everyone in the Group has played an important role in building the capabilities that are positioning Journeo as an industry sector leader and help capture an increasing share of a market that is transitioning from proprietary or closed hybrid systems to open, standards-based, IoT solutions.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their commitment and attention to detail and look forward to working with them as we enter an exciting and successful period for the Group over the next few years.

Outlook

The performance of the Group through a time of unprecedented global challenges has been admirable and we continue to make solid progress. Journeo showed great resilience throughout 2021 and local authority and fleet operator customers are re-engaging with renewed momentum.

Indications are that many of the issues affecting global supply chains, particularly microprocessor and displays manufacture continue to pose challenges, however. projects that were temporarily suspended or delayed are restarting, such as the £2.1m second phase of the City of Edinburgh real time project announced in March 2022.

The increasing adoption of our IP and technologies from flagship customers in the last 18 months reinforces our conviction that a customer-led, applied development strategy is the correct one; and moreover, that it is working.  Strong performance from our factory and delivery teams in Q4 2021 has been bolstered in Q1 2022 by good order intake and a significant pipeline of future sales opportunities into 2023 and beyond.

Public transport continues to be a major focus for the UK Government, and we look forward to learning more in the anticipated announcements of the successful bidders for key funding streams such as ZEBRA and the National Bus Strategy for England later this year.

Over the last 12 months, the Group has managed to mitigate many of the component supply chain issues and continues to meet customer expectations for delivery. However, the situation may be exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine, and is an area where we remain particularly vigilant.

We continue to evaluate complementary or bolt on acquisitions where our technologies, software and core capabilities, that we continue to invest in, can add value.  The Board remains focused on delivering ambitious growth plans and, the significant Government funding, plus increased adoption of our technologies and software underpin our confidence in meeting these objectives.

Mark Elliott

Non-Executive Chairman

Chief Executive's Report

Introduction and strategy update

The continued adoption of our technologies and software solutions by flagship customers demonstrates the significant progress we are making. 

The transport sector has faced many challenges in recent years, where the number of new bus registrations were lower than the historic norm, even before the global pandemic as a result of the reduction in passenger numbers.

The collective impact of these and other industry-specific events has been partially responsible for creating the circumstances for our software and services to thrive. For example, where fleet operators' have been seeking to prolong the life of their vehicles, Journeo has been able to provide a solution to increase system availability on legacy fleets through Remote Condition Monitoring. Whilst the global pandemic limited fleet operators ability to access CCTV images directly from vehicles, Journeo delivered secure, cloud-based access to vital evidence. And whilst the reduction in passenger numbers reduced fleet operator margins, Journeo has delivered innovative camera monitoring systems that improve safety and further reduce fleet operating costs.

The deep and trusted customer bonds and our technical agility enable us to pivot our core technology quickly to resolve customer needs, and our engineering excellence ensures that we can deliver solutions that are crucial to operators and infrastructure managers in challenging operating environments.

During the year we secured a number of strategically important wins, including a three-year contract with Arriva to connect 4,700 of their UK buses, which is the largest single deployment of our SaaS-based solutions to date.  Further penetration into airports was gained with the win at Heathrow, the third busiest airport in the world by international passenger traffic, and we expanded our passenger information systems along key transport corridors throughout Wales.

Over the last four years we have invested over £5m into R&D and this run-rate will continue, fueled by increased customer interest in our technology and significant market drivers to encourage sustainable and carbon zero transport solutions. 

Operational review

Passenger Infrastructure Systems

Local authorities have been delivered one of their biggest challenges in recent times by the UK Government. The National Bus Strategy for England (Bus Back Better published March 2021) paved the way for Enhanced Partnerships (EP) with operators and access to greater levels of funding from central Government to meet these ambitious plans.  However, to achieve this, local authorities and transport executives were required to complete extensive Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs) to access new funding.

One side-effect from this was the delay in some expected projects taking place as customers worked to complete and submit their BSIPs.  As a result, we experienced a 7% fall in revenues to £6.3m (2020: £6.8m) which is disappointing as it masks the significant groundwork that was laid with customers in support of their BSIPs and the future projects that are expected to emerge. The sales process for infrastructure projects can be protracted and difficult to predict, but the early signs in 2022 are that we will see a return to growth in the coming year.

The announcement made in January for a £1.3m award from a northern transport partnership demonstrated the interest in our real time information displays and content management software.  Part of a tranche 2 order from the £2.4bn Transforming Cities Fund (TCF), our solution forms part of a continuing commitment by the customer to enhance their passenger information solutions which we anticipate will continue to grow in future. Our accurate and intuitive systems have been well received and we will shortly be expanding the features and capabilities to include disruption messaging and up-to-the-moment travel information to passengers.

In November 2021, we completed the site acceptance testing and handover of City of Edinburgh Bus Station.  The project had experienced delays due to regional travel restrictions but was completed shortly after these were lifted. This milestone is a gateway for the Edinburgh team to access the second phase, referred to as Lot 2 of the contract where we will deliver our latest high contrast optically bonded display technology throughout Scotland's capital city.  We were delighted to be able to announce our first orders under Lot 2 in March 2022, valued at £2.1m.

Ensuring that our solutions support customers' aims to achieve carbon neutrality is a major focus in our product development.  In March 2021, we announced an award valued at £1.1m, for solar-powered displays in key transport corridors in Wales. Since then, we have developed lower power solutions.  We currently have trials taking place of our next generation ultra-low power solutions, that have the potential of a 7-year running time without intervention, or extended indefinitely by the addition of solar energy and wind turbine, with recyclable battery technology.  The expansion of our systems into key transport corridors in Wales has continued, and a further contract award of £0.8m was announced in December 2021, positioning Journeo well for future opportunities with Transport for Wales (TfW).

Estimates for the level of funding available as part of the National Bus Strategy for England have been revised down since its initial announcement, as a result of funding the Covid-19 Bus Service Support Grant (CBSSG) and its replacement Bus Recovery Grants (BRG) schemes  to support networks throughout the Covid-19 pandemic (initial estimates c. £3bn vs. current estimates c. £1.4bn), but there is still cause for optimism.  A green and sustainable recovery to meet the Governments' Net Zero carbon goals will be reliant on encouraging the mass movement of people away from personal-use vehicles and on to clean and efficient public transport.  This will undoubtedly require investment in transport infrastructure projects that have underpinned our success and we expect this will increase in the coming years.

Fleet Transport Operator Systems

Last year proved to be a significant year for our Fleet Transport Operator Systems business with revenue increasing by 36% to £9.3m (2020: £6.8m). The increased level of SaaS-based subscriptions within the business mix helped increase the underlying profit to £0.7m (2020: £0.1m), demonstrating the value that our innovative solutions are delivering to our customers.

In our Annual Report for 2020 we included reference to a 200-system trial of our IoT technology with Abellio London.  We were delighted in July 2021 to announce the trial was a success with a three-year £0.5m SaaS framework. The cost of the solution is being funded through operational savings and efficiencies which further underscores the attractive Return On Investment (ROI) that Journeo's agile software and cloud-based solutions provide.

Abellio's decision to adopt our technology fleet wide on around 900 buses was our largest single deployment in London.  This was swiftly followed by an announcement that Journeo will be the preferred supplier for legacy and new CCTV systems for Metroline, with a fleet of 1,500 buses that form part of ComfortDelGro, further extending our presence within London, where approximately one third of all buses in England operate.

In November 2021, we announced a three-year SaaS contract award from Arriva UK Bus, adding an additional 4,700 connections to our cloud-based platforms. The roll-out and installation of our complementary IoT technology will complete during 2022 and will take the number of vehicles connected to our platform to over 10,000 by the end of 2022. Since its launch in November 2019, Journeo Portal is gaining popularity and we look forward to further adoption as a number of other operators are currently evaluating the application.

This success is not limited to bus and coach, however. Whilst announced just after the financial year end in January 2022 , the achievement of our small, dedicated rail team in introducing our solution into the rail market demonstrates the opportunities in adjacent and complementary markets for our solutions. The £0.7m framework services award with GB Railfreight for fleet wide deployment of our Forward-Facing CCTV system also includes the provision of secure access to Journeo Portal for Network Rail and British Transport Police, further enhancing the value of our software in highly regulated environments.

Interest in Journeo's car park bussing and inter-terminal mobility systems in airports also continues to grow. In September 2021 we announced the award of a five-year contract at Heathrow Airport, valued initially at £2.5m, with Transdev Airport Services where we will deliver vital operational management, Real Time Information and on-vehicle technology services.  With a growing market share in airport mobility, Transdev are leaders in the airport shuttle segment in the USA and have been providing mobility solutions at airports in the UK for over 50 years. 

Work has already begun to deliver our technology and services to Transdev for existing vehicles with new vehicles expected to be delivered later this year. We have also started the work to connect the existing car park and terminal displays into our management platform. This will allow Transdev to provide accurate real-time information to passengers and staff travelling to terminals and on connecting services.

Central Services

Most of our people continued to work from home throughout 2021, as we adopted a hybrid working model when Covid-19 restrictions permitted.  Particular attention was paid to team member engagement to prevent isolation issues through a series of daily, weekly and monthly departmental virtual meetings and regular on-line seminars that were open to everyone in the Company. These interactive events included presentations on the latest developments in transport applications. The sessions proved to be very popular so are being continued and now form part of our formal ISO workforce communication plan for 2022.

We also worked hard to maintain relationships with our supply chain partners to ensure that where possible, we were able to access vital components and maintain adequate stock levels required to meet our commitments.

2021 also provided the soft launch of our new Fault Management System, allowing our systems to automatically raise support tickets should they require an engineering visit.  Initially rolled out to our flagship customer, the City of Edinburgh, this new system enables our operations team to track system performance down to component level, allowing them to identify trends and work with our technical teams to mitigate future incidents.  The system is now gradually being rolled out to all customers.

Throughout the year, we have maintained all ISO accreditations and have now added the Cyber Essentials accreditation, giving further assurance to our customers that they are placing their data within a safe and secure environment.

Russ Singleton

Chief Executive