Interview Spotlight: NXP Semiconductors

In your opinion, what are the benefits of mobile ticketing in transportation?

First and foremost, it’s of utmost importance to pay attention to how people move in and around cities, especially as the UN expects almost 70 per cent of the world’s population to live in urban areas by 2050. Public transport is therefore the backbone of smart cities, and contactless ticketing schemes can help passengers travel as fast and hassle-free as possible.

Mobile ticketing helps to create more connected and intuitive journeys. This is done by providing real-time information on fare routes or potential disruptions for example, making it easier for passengers to plan trips and update friends. Greater customer satisfaction can be achieved with less queuing at ticket vending machines and tickets bought on the go – issued directly to the smartphone. NXP’s new MIFARE 2GO cloud service solution addresses these exact needs, whilst simultaneously allowing transport operators to take advantage of mobile ticketing. With MIFARE 2GO, transport agencies can retain full control of their system and update fare structures or policies as required. Processes can be made more efficient as less cash-handling means staffing fewer ticket counters and maintaining fewer machines, which can ultimately lead to considerable savings.

Will mobile ticketing replace smartcards?

This question has been continuously asked for the past decade, and while we see mobile ticketing accelerating, there are still a vast number of smartcards issued each year. Despite the current and different transportation trends, we aim to meet the needs of our customers – and their end customers – by creating flexible, scalable and secure product and solution offerings that help them achieve their goals.

As such, our MIFARE product portfolio provides comprehensive coverage across all form factors, such as contactless smart paper tickets, smartcards, wearables and mobile devices. In addition, we are establishing a marketplace that can facilitate the collaboration of device/brand issuers and service providers. This marketplace can allow end customers to install their required credentials for access to transportation and city services on any chosen device.

How do you think mobile ticketing is going to evolve in the next five years?

Due to our extensive expertise in contactless transport solutions and our collaborations with leading ecosystem players, we can see a clear upward trend when it comes to mobile ticketing. What will become essential is increasing the value for customers by providing additional city services. Nevertheless, transport agencies need to be able to stay flexible and establish and maintain profitable business models – mobile offers the perfect channel for that.

Lastly, there has been an increase of cities embracing mobile ticketing as they too see its substantial benefits. In 2018 we successfully launched the very first mobile ticketing solution in Las Vegas using MIFARE 2GO. As we see it, the future of mobile ticketing has already begun.