HEADLINE NEWS
UK: Telco Orange and Bus Operator Trial NFC Transit Tickets
Orange UK, part of the Everything Everywhere telco joint venture, is providing trial participants with a total of 40 phones and NFC SIM cards on which they can load weekly, monthly and unlimited passes, the latter automatically renewable by a debit of the users’ credit or debit card. Customers buy the passes online, and they are automatically loaded onto the NFC SIMs when the customers tap the reader the next time they ride. About 300 Stagecoach buses will be able to accept the contactless-mobile tickets in Cambridgeshire, the country that includes the university town of Cambridge. The ticketing applications support the UK government-back ITSO standard.
The trial is modest, with only 40 total participants on a low-end and a mid-tier phone. But Orange and bus operator Stagecoach say it could lead to a national rollout of NFC transit ticketing next year. Orange is keen to offer more applications for its Quick Tap service, which now only gives customers a prepaid application and a small loyalty program.
* Trusted Service Manager: Defined loosely to include companies or other organizations securely distributing, provisioning and managing applications, generally over the air, on secure elements in NFC mobile phones; or licensing their platforms for this purpose.
N/A: Not available or not applicable.
Last update: May 2012
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