NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The CIO of Italy’s largest public transit operator, ATAC SpA, said the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated demand for open-loop contactless and mobile payments, but added that old habits are hard to break for customers and use of cash and paper tickets are still popular.
ATAC, which is also one of the largest transit operators in Europe, introduced open-loop payments in 2019, and plans to expand use of the technology to other transit modes and possibly to cover payments for mobility-as-a-service apps.
“Yes, in the end, it's sad to say, but we have seen, of course, a boost in the usage of the technologies due to the Covid,” said Francesco Amendola, who heads ICT for ATAC, speaking at a recent Transport Ticketing Digital virtual conference. “We had already started our EMV project before COVID at the end of 2019. And what we’ve experienced is that the ratio between the EMV users as compared to, let's say, the traditional paper-ticket users increased during the COVID period. They (customers) appreciated that they did not have to deal with the self-service machines or to go to a shop to buy a ticket. (Instead), they had their credit card in their wallet.”
