RESEARCH: Projects

 INFORMACIÓN GENERAL

 INVOLVED COMPANIES

 BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

Fare management schemes in transport are increasingly becoming more digitized in most large cities. However, most suffer from a siloed approach, as each transport mode is owned, operated or maintained by a range of different actors. The fact that these actors often come from public, private or even mixed backgrounds adds a layer of complexity to the issue of interoperable fare management.

However, the advent of new user-friendly contactless payment technologies, such as web-based, 2D readers, or Near Field Communication (NFC) payments (smartcard and smartphone-based) have opened the door for new services that can effectively tear down interoperability barriers while offering a suite of extended services for multiple transport products.

These technologies will address a range of scenarios highly relevant to the deployment of Interoperable Fare Management (IFM) systems throughout Europe focused on offering seamless intermodal mobility to entire cities and regions. Moreover, these IFM services that can deal with multiple modes across great geographical areas and interoperate with disparate passenger transport services will be united under a set of standards, best principles and interoperability guidelines to be exploited throughout the project. This has benefits for both the users and the owners and enables the creation of a unified transport market capable of maximizing a city or municipality’s mobility through basic market forces.

In order to demonstrate these technologies and validate the benefits that they can have, four pilots from across Europe; in Santander (Spain), Tuscany (Italy), West Midlands (UK) and Novi Sad (Serbia) have been chosen. Each pilot includes all the necessary stakeholders in the value-chain such as Transport Operators, Public Authorities, Transport Industry as well as a high number of end-users and transport products.