Paying for Transit with Your NFC-Equipped Mobile Phone

Gemalto and TIM are together paving the way for the mobile contactless deployment in Italy. Thanks to mobile contactless, travelling becomes easier and faster. With Gemalto’s technology, ticket issuance becomes more efficient and interactive. Users are able to purchase tickets from anywhere at anytime through their mobile phone. And travelers can validate their transport pass even when the battery of their mobile phone is off.

Benefits of contactless access to transport are indisputable. Every end-user is easily convinced that NFC transport ticketing service is easy-to-use and quick. The transport operator enjoys it to reduce the cost of ticket issuance, to greatly reduce access point’s maintenance expenses, harness fraud and enrich the users travel experience by offering convenient travel information such as timetables and location maps. The mobile operator leverages the value-added created by driving new usage scenarios, by reducing churn, and by growing a new business from these daily and touristic users.

In that triple-headed ecosystem, Gemalto acts as a facilitator, providing its trust sharing services and its expertise accumulated worldwide in order to deploy innovation in the best way. As a well recognized trusted services company Gemalto ensures transport operators that their ticketing and transportation services rights will be securely distributed and managed over-the-air by the mobile services operators for their customers.

Gemalto has already conducted several programs on various NFC transport infrastructures. In Western Europe for example, in 2005, Gemalto joined together with Bouygues Telecom and RATP to launch the first SIM-based contactless system in Paris. In 2006, Gemalto working also with Bouygues Telecom, and with regional operator Transdev, delivered a contactless program covering Grenoble and its region, including smart posters so that end users can download maps on their mobiles. In 2007, Gemalto proposed to SFR and RATP in Paris an enhanced system encompassing in particular an advanced user interface managed by a sophisticated tiny smart card embedded web server that leverages the handsets browser features. The same year, SFR, NRJ Mobile, Compagnie des Transports Strasbourgeois and Gemalto put in service the first extended NFC program that features both payment and transport applications using the same SIM. In 2007 also, Gemalto associated with Orange, SNCF and Keolis provided Rennes’ region inhabitants with a comprehensive multi-modal set of contactless services: bus, trams, trains, parking and smart posters. It is so along a long line of innovation in transportation applications that in 2008, TIM and Gemalto now deploy the first NFC contactless system in Italy.

By deeply understanding transport operators' requirements across many years, Gemalto has succeeded in developing a well-tested and complete line of NFC operated service for mobile transportation, designed to ease and speed the deployment of contactless applications and simplify their lifecycle management. Versatile SIM cards, comprehensive security functions, specific applications with optimized user interfaces, OTA personalization services, secure application download, trusted service management and NFC mobile ticketing features are key elements that Gemalto provides which have clearly proven their effectiveness in the field.

"Our experience of multiple local transport markets has strengthened our overall expertise in the matter of contactless," commented Philippe Vallée, Executive Vice President, Telecom at Gemalto. “Contactless transport infrastructures have already been deployed in hundreds of cities all over the world; users rapidly adopt the technology and enjoy the strong benefits that it offers. That is why we forecast that transportation applications will be essential to the take-off of NFC services on mobile phones."