Visa reported this week that contactless payments continued to climb as a percentage of all face-to-face transactions with its brand, mainly at retail, and among the uses the network is continuing to push for contactless is to pay for transit fares.
Sampo Hietanen, founder and CEO of Finland-based MaaS Global, agrees with most other industry experts that public transit should form the “core” of the mobility services on offer in any MaaS app or platform. But he contends that it would be a mistake for the agency itself to control the platform.
Despite the growing popularity of contactless, NFC and QR-code technologies for electronic fare-collection, some transit agencies are experimenting with other technologies to collect fares.
(Updated case study): The chief customer and business development officer for the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority in the U.S. told Mobility Payments that a phased approach in rolling out electronic payments and quick customer adoption has enabled the agency to get close to its goal of eliminating cash on board its vehicles.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight –LAS VEGAS: Perhaps to both preserve its mystique and avoid leaks, Apple has scrupulously avoided speaking or exhibiting at trade shows and conferences over the years.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – As the Covid-19 crisis sows fear among mass transit customers and causes ridership on buses, trains and trams to crash, there is heightened interest in mobile ticketing and other electronic fare payments as a way to ease the concerns and help coax wary riders to return.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – With Switzerland’s No. 2 bank, Credit Suisse, expected to participate in Apple Pay, the U.S.-based tech giant continues to chip away at resistance among major European banks to joining its digital payments service.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – With the National Football League kicking off its season in a few weeks in the U.S., fans will be using NFC, QR codes and perhaps ultrasonic signals on their mobile devices, in addition to tapping contactless-enabled paper tickets, to attend football games and other events at all 31 NFL stadiums.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Most issuers in the U.S. have so far held back from rolling out contactless or dual-interface cards, but merchant acceptance has been quietly building over the past few years, despite some large U.S. retailers balking at accepting contactless cards and NFC-enabled devices.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight –Payments industry backers suggest that U.S. banks could have an incentive to begin contactless rollouts soon, but in the absence of deadlines from the major payments networks, which are rapidly approaching in other markets, there's no guarantee of rollouts in the U.S. on the horizon.
NFC TIMES Exclusive –As the digital payments ecosystem moves into 2018, it is dealing with many of the same unfulfilled promises, works in progress and unfinished business as in 2017.
NFC TIMES Exclusive – As more U.S. merchants launch their own payments apps, some seem positioned to offer serious competition to Apple Pay and the other NFC “Pays” wallets.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight –Promoters of contextual commerce are looking to a range of connected devices, including smart appliances and such home hubs as Alexa–along with a host of mobile devices–to enable consumers to pay in almost every context. But many challenges remain for what could become a “very disjointed” array of payment options, experts say.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – As retailers and payments services providers increasingly try to connect and track consumer transactions across online and in-store channels, mobile payments must function as part of an omnichannel payments ecosystem, say industry observers.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – With the buzz around the Internet of Things growing ever stronger, the payments ecosystem is determined not to be left out.
Two mid-tier bus operators in Slovakia are among the latest to enable their customers to tap virtual closed-loop transit cards in Google Pay to pay fares, using a provisioning service from NXP Semiconductors.
NFC TIMES Exclusive – Large trip-planning app provider Moovit has enabled customers of more than 50 mostly small transit agencies in the U.S. to buy mobile tickets it its app, with more agencies to come, the company confirmed to Mobility Payments.
There is little disputing the fact that mobility as a service has not yet lived up to its hype. And the industry’s largest automated fare collection system provider, Cubic Transportation Systems, said it believes that going forward, public transit services need to form the backbone of MaaS platforms, along with enabling more demand-responsive transport.
As the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, sees it, the state’s more than 300 local transit agencies offer a fragmented and inefficient mix of fare collection systems–a fact it says discourages many potential riders among the state’s nearly 40 million residents from taking public transit.
Google has finally enabled users to initiate purchases of public transit tickets from its Maps app, following delays. Meanwhile, rival trip-planning app providers Moovit and Transit have been quietly moving forward with signing up most of the same small U.S. transit agencies to sell tickets in their apps.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or WMATA, as expected, has added its closed-loop fare card SmarTrip to Google Pay, following support by Apple Pay for the card last year.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – California public bus agency Monterey-Salinas Transit on Tuesday officially launched a six-month “demonstration” project to pilot contactless open-loop payments. While the agency is very small, providing only around 3,500 rides per day last year, the launch holds much greater significance.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – U.S.-based Cubic Transportation Systems has announced contracts with two more small U.S. transit agencies to move to Cubic’s Umo ticketing platform, as the large automated fare-collection system vendor seeks to broaden its market reach.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – RTC of Southern Nevada, the main transit agency serving Las Vegas and the surrounding region, now enables customers to buy passes for bike share in addition to tickets for buses through the trip-planning Transit app. Although the implementation is relatively small, project backers say Las Vegas is the first U.S. city to launch bike share and transit passes in the same app.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – U.S.-based trip-planning app Transit announced it has enabled 500,000 rides from its app for a group of 13 small to mid-tier transit agencies based in the state of Ohio, though mobile ticketing still makes up a small percentage of total rides provided by the agencies.
NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Although the trend for transit agencies to support open-loop fare payments, including with Apple Pay, Google Pay and other Pays wallets, has continued unabated–even accelerated–during the pandemic, another trend is taking shape: That of agencies adding virtual versions of their closed-loop fare cards into the Pays wallets.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – As the Covid-19 crisis sows fear among mass transit customers and causes ridership on buses, trains and trams to crash, there is heightened interest in mobile ticketing and other electronic fare payments as a way to ease the concerns and help coax wary riders to return.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – With Switzerland’s No. 2 bank, Credit Suisse, expected to participate in Apple Pay, the U.S.-based tech giant continues to chip away at resistance among major European banks to joining its digital payments service.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – With the National Football League kicking off its season in a few weeks in the U.S., fans will be using NFC, QR codes and perhaps ultrasonic signals on their mobile devices, in addition to tapping contactless-enabled paper tickets, to attend football games and other events at all 31 NFL stadiums.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Most issuers in the U.S. have so far held back from rolling out contactless or dual-interface cards, but merchant acceptance has been quietly building over the past few years, despite some large U.S. retailers balking at accepting contactless cards and NFC-enabled devices.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight –Payments industry backers suggest that U.S. banks could have an incentive to begin contactless rollouts soon, but in the absence of deadlines from the major payments networks, which are rapidly approaching in other markets, there's no guarantee of rollouts in the U.S. on the horizon.
NFC TIMES Exclusive –As the digital payments ecosystem moves into 2018, it is dealing with many of the same unfulfilled promises, works in progress and unfinished business as in 2017.
NFC TIMES Exclusive – As more U.S. merchants launch their own payments apps, some seem positioned to offer serious competition to Apple Pay and the other NFC “Pays” wallets.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight –Promoters of contextual commerce are looking to a range of connected devices, including smart appliances and such home hubs as Alexa–along with a host of mobile devices–to enable consumers to pay in almost every context. But many challenges remain for what could become a “very disjointed” array of payment options, experts say.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – As retailers and payments services providers increasingly try to connect and track consumer transactions across online and in-store channels, mobile payments must function as part of an omnichannel payments ecosystem, say industry observers.
NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – With the buzz around the Internet of Things growing ever stronger, the payments ecosystem is determined not to be left out.
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