A webinar hosted by Eurotransport in association with Masabi, examined where the future of fare collection is heading.
“The advents of new technology has given people who work in fare collection a lot more to deal with in options,” said Ben Whitaker head of innovation for Masabi.
Whitaker designates that fare collection falls under two categories; transit-issued media and ‘bring your own’ media. Transit-issued media includes tokens, tickets and smart cards. “The transit-issued media is almost always issued through kiosks and windows as opposed to the ‘bring your own’ media,” said Whitaker.
The second includes mobile payments, print your own tickets, EMV bank cards and ID cards from other issuers (for example schools, businesses or senior citizen cards). These are able to be sold without the rider having to go directly to the transit agency to purchase their fares.
Brandt Olson, CTO for Keolis said that the company has been developing its technology offerings within fare collection. “We’re really excited that we’ve launched mobile options and we’ve seen a big shift to passengers using that. I think one of the interesting things that hasn’t been spoken about very much are ID cards issued from schools and such.” Olson said that they have worked with schools to determine how easy those cards would be to adapt to allow for use on public transportation systems.
Whitaker said that using ID cards is a particularly exciting option in the case where riders would be riding free — for example university students who can ride the public transportation systems or senior citizens — agencies lose money by having to print a pass for riders to use.
Mixing Fare Options
Whitaker raised the question, "Can we use things as tickets, that are not tickets, in an account-based ticketing system?"
The history of fare collection is the traditional transit issued media, in which has the customer carrying something that is able to be used in that particular transit system. The benefit of this system is that fare can be accepted offline by a conductor or fare reader. EMV cards allow for the fare to be charged to an account — like a bank account.
“I think some of the hangups of each are who it really appeals to. If you have to sent up an account, it’s only going to appeal to a certain number of people," said Whitaker.
Olson said that Keolis finds EMV cards as an exciting addition to their network. "There’s a lot of passengers today that do not like smart cards, and like to have tickets so they have control and know how much you're spending. There is still some trade off there, but I think it’s still interesting."
A benefit of EMV cards are that they have the potential to make travel for tourists easier. They can be more inclined to use the public transportation system because they pay for it in the same way as the one they ride back home. It also means that travelers don't need to go out of their way to find a ticketing machine or kiosk, and they aren't purchasing a card they won't use again.
Thomas Calderband of Preston Bus in the United Kingdom said that they plan to have EMV payments live in around the next five years. "Its certainly something that will come along, the only thing with us implementing EMV cards is that they need to have reliability." Calderband adds that with mobile payments, the ability for riders to see how much they are spending on the go, is a highly attractive feature that he'd like to see included in the EMV. "I think if there is that option it will be very popular."
"The things that we want to avoid, like with smart cards, is having the single option," explained Olson. "We had people lose customers because they didn’t like the smart cards and stopped using public transportation. We introduced the choice mobile ticketing and we had people coming back because they liked the flexibility of the mobile ticketing."
Industry Innovation
But how will fare innovation be rolled out? Will transit agencies make a gradual change, such as slowly introducing one technology alongside cash fare collection, or will they jump directly to newer technologies?
Established mTix Fare Options
- SMS
- Barcode
- EMV
Experimental mTix Fare Options
- Bluetooth
- NFC
"What we’re seeing at Keolis is that smaller agencies that are cash only or card as well, we see them moving over to mobile," said Olson. "They’re skeptical that it can happen in six weeks, but it is a very quick process." Olson added that when implementing new fare systems in larger scale systems takes a larger team.
"From Masabi's point of view, when mobile ticketing started I think that there was an explosion of SMS ticketing. What we've seen from people who had success on an SMS is that they are looking toward something faster with higher security. We have seen barcode come into a real production now. Where it is a good fit with the agency and the interaction, we’ve seen that its very successful for a large event when you have large amount of people traveling," said Whitaker. "With the mobile EMV we've seen a rise in popularity, with TfL they’re seeing people continuing to use." Whitaker said that they are excited about the option of Bluetooth as a payment method. A form of payment that allows for riders to pay without having to take anything out of their pockets.
Calderband said that in the U.K. bus market they don't have much experience in relation to higher costing fare technologies; and Calderband said that he felt NFC and Bluetooth payment systems aren't really worth the time that it takes to implement them at the moment. "We’ve only just looked at mobile, but its taken off and its taken off very well. We're hearing great things from customers. Preston is not much of a tourist town, so it would be nice if we could work with restaurants, museum and such."
Preston buses currently runs to make exact fare payments when they ride — which means that riders need to know what the fare is before they ride.
"We acknowledge that it is not idea and that customers do not like it. However it does have its benefits it is faster, and the majority of our riders are frequent so they have their fare ready," said Calderband. "In four years time hopefully all of our passengers will be using mobile ticketing. We hope to reduce our times to relieve increased congestion. In our view there will always be a place for cash on our buses for about as long as I can see."
Using exact fare collection can occasionally give riders the perception that the transit system is 'unfriendly.' Whitaker concluded by emphasizing the fact that he feels that transit systems need to consider multiple forms of payment: using one method can make a certain group of riders feel alienated.
