City living can be a stressful experience at times, particularly if it’s in one of the large capital cities where the cost of living is high and the pace incredibly fast. I myself live in Marseille and travel a lot for business, so like many professionals find myself having to commute via public transport for over an hour a day and also navigate different national and foreign cities transport systems when travelling on business. There is nothing quite like the stress of trying to translate an unfamiliar language on a ticketing machine to travel during rush-hour when there’s a queue of impatient locals behind you…and an important meeting to get to!
Contactless payments and NFC have already been making transport in our home cities easier for some time now. As I’ve written previously, London, Moscow, Shanghai and Hong Kong are amongst the best at embracing this kind of new technology.
But thanks to the launch of our next generation UpTeq Multi-Tenant NFC SIM this week, travellers are now able to use the same NFC smart phone to pay for travel on all MIFARE Classic and DESFire transport networks such as the ones in Los Angeles, Stockholm and Madrid. Previously we’d have needed to battle against ticketing machines to travel in these cities, but now we can enjoy swift and secure contactless access.
This universal approach also makes management of the back-end much more efficient for transport providers, who can now deploy enhanced digital ticketing solutions quickly and save on operation costs.
I see it as one of the final pieces completing the digital transport puzzle. We’ve been able to use GPS and mobile apps to check when the next train or bus is coming for a while now, and now we can do the same for all of our tickets. Just imagine, no more walking home in the rain because you haven’t got any cash on you, or the ticket machine is broken, and no more lines forming behind you at the barriers.
What do you think of this latest move for NFC ticketing? Let us know by tweeting to us at @Gemalto.
