At the recent Transport Card Forum meeting in London, CHYP's Public Sector Commercial Manager Mike Burden described how Consult Hyperion, transport consultancy MVA, technologists ESP Systex, mobile operator O2 and the NowCard scheme in the North West have joined forces on the first-ever live ITSO Near Field Communications (NFC) trials for public transport ticketing. The Department for Transport (DfT) has funded this research project, with 36 'trialists' currently using mobile phones to pay for bus tickets in Blackpool. ITSO is the specification supported by the Department for Transport (DfT) for interoperable contactless smartcards.
"Increasingly, the data transfer made possible by NFC will take the form of secure payment and ticketing transactions, since NFC phones can be set up to deduct funds from the user's bank account, or stocked up with credit in advance," said Burden. "Since most people carry their mobiles every day, whether they have cash on them or not, the type of transactions made possible by NFC represent a wide variety of possibilities in terms of mobile payments and ticketing."
The ability to use mobile phones as a means for downloading and holding public transport tickets will deliver greater convenience for customers by eliminating the need to queue at the ticket office, and will deliver reduced ticket issuance cost for operators. In addition, the user interface capabilities of the phone will give users the ability to view their journey history and remaining credit at any time. Consult Hyperion is one of the few independent organisations in the world to be working with mobile operators, the GSM Association, chip manufacturers, application developers, public sector bodies and the European Commission in this area. Our independence, combined with in-depth technical knowledge, is important to the Department for Transport (DfT) because it enables Consult Hyperion to identify and select the most innovative and highly skilled best-of-breed partners.
Live trials of this technology – part of a DfT-funded technology research project launched to investigate and demonstrate the viability of using an NFC phone as an ITSO ticket carrier – are already underway in the North West of England under the NoWcard scheme with two different bus operators. By using NFC technology in place of cards, bus drivers can validate pre-paid bus tickets that have been stored on users' mobile phones. The user benefits from the convenience of the phone as well as being able to use the phone display to check on the remaining balance on stored value tickets. The project's first milestone was the certification of the Nokia 6131 phone by ITSO to enable it to be used in live schemes. As such, the Nokia device is able to interact with all existing ITSO card readers, which means that no new investment in infrastructure will be required by ITSO members (which include bus operators, train companies, suppliers to the industry, and local authorities) to accept NFC phones as well as cards.
The on-going research project represent a further continuation of the DfT’s ambition to investigate new technologies in order to provide greater convenience across its public transport network. The objective is to evaluate NFC-enabled devices – as well as new functionality within ITSO – in order to gauge whether:
• The carrier device is able to hold ITSO-compliant public transport tickets• Remote retail devices will be able to sell ITSO-compliant public transport tickets over a mobile network• A 'validator' device is able to validate ITSO-compliant tickets stored on other media via the NFC interface.
Participants were instructed to use the phone for travel, and to engage in a number of activities including the use of Stored Travel Rights, Top-Up Vouchers, and special Youth Concessions. Phase Two of the project, which is already underway, is looking to assist the DfT and ITSO in enhancing the ITSO specifications so that NFC devices can also be used to validate and issue smart tickets to ITSO cards. This work includes the development of multiple prototype terminals and potentially further live trials.
"Increasingly, the data transfer made possible by NFC will take the form of secure payment and ticketing transactions, since NFC phones can be set up to deduct funds from the user's bank account, or stocked up with credit in advance," said Burden. "Since most people carry their mobiles every day, whether they have cash on them or not, the type of transactions made possible by NFC represent a wide variety of possibilities in terms of mobile payments and ticketing."
The ability to use mobile phones as a means for downloading and holding public transport tickets will deliver greater convenience for customers by eliminating the need to queue at the ticket office, and will deliver reduced ticket issuance cost for operators. In addition, the user interface capabilities of the phone will give users the ability to view their journey history and remaining credit at any time. Consult Hyperion is one of the few independent organisations in the world to be working with mobile operators, the GSM Association, chip manufacturers, application developers, public sector bodies and the European Commission in this area. Our independence, combined with in-depth technical knowledge, is important to the Department for Transport (DfT) because it enables Consult Hyperion to identify and select the most innovative and highly skilled best-of-breed partners.
Live trials of this technology – part of a DfT-funded technology research project launched to investigate and demonstrate the viability of using an NFC phone as an ITSO ticket carrier – are already underway in the North West of England under the NoWcard scheme with two different bus operators. By using NFC technology in place of cards, bus drivers can validate pre-paid bus tickets that have been stored on users' mobile phones. The user benefits from the convenience of the phone as well as being able to use the phone display to check on the remaining balance on stored value tickets. The project's first milestone was the certification of the Nokia 6131 phone by ITSO to enable it to be used in live schemes. As such, the Nokia device is able to interact with all existing ITSO card readers, which means that no new investment in infrastructure will be required by ITSO members (which include bus operators, train companies, suppliers to the industry, and local authorities) to accept NFC phones as well as cards.
The on-going research project represent a further continuation of the DfT’s ambition to investigate new technologies in order to provide greater convenience across its public transport network. The objective is to evaluate NFC-enabled devices – as well as new functionality within ITSO – in order to gauge whether:
• The carrier device is able to hold ITSO-compliant public transport tickets• Remote retail devices will be able to sell ITSO-compliant public transport tickets over a mobile network• A 'validator' device is able to validate ITSO-compliant tickets stored on other media via the NFC interface.
Participants were instructed to use the phone for travel, and to engage in a number of activities including the use of Stored Travel Rights, Top-Up Vouchers, and special Youth Concessions. Phase Two of the project, which is already underway, is looking to assist the DfT and ITSO in enhancing the ITSO specifications so that NFC devices can also be used to validate and issue smart tickets to ITSO cards. This work includes the development of multiple prototype terminals and potentially further live trials.
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