ITSO and its partners bring in the New Year with mobile ticketing at Transport Ticketing Global event

ITSO offers the only completely nationwide, inter-operable smart ticketing solution for public transport and has for many years worked to deliver ITSO smartcard services to an ever-wider population of passengers. ITSO is already in place throughout much of the UK accounting for over 2 billion journeys per year.

ITSO smartcard ticketing continues to grow and the advantages that a mobile option will bring are clear. From the point of view of passengers, it is all about flexibility, convenience and choice. From the operator’s perspective, it is about creating an attractive offer; increase usage and access to valuable data insight and reductions in ticket issuance and cash handling costs.

2018 will see the industry embrace ITSO smart tickets. Passengers will be able to buy tickets on the move, switch between operators and modes of transport and access real-time data – all from their mobile phone. Operators will be able to roll out mobile tickets quickly and easily with minimum disruption to their current infrastructure and see the cost savings with this easy implementation.

To deliver this advancement in ticketing technology, ITSO is working along with IDEMIA, the global leader in Augmented Identity for an increasingly digital world, and Unicard, a long-established solution provider to the transport industry, to build and manage the ITSO Transit Hub; a fundamental part of the solution that manages the ticket fulfilment, provisioning and reporting service.

Steve Wakeland, Chief Executive Officer at ITSO Ltd, said it’s a gamechanger.

“In the early part of this new year, we will start to see the first trials of ITSO mobile ticketing go live. Operators on bus and rail will be launching a range of ticketing options for the mobile handset through their own retail Apps.” He explained.

“We know mobile ticketing isn’t new to our industry. So, why am I claiming this to be a gamechanger? Current mobile ticketing schemes have their limitations and security risks. It may be a visible ticket on the mobile screen that the passenger must show to the driver for validation rather than tap on a smart reader, or it may be a bar code ticket that a rail passenger has had to wait to be downloaded to their phone. With ITSO smart ticketing, smart really does mean smart. Planning, paying and remote download is done in no time compared to some existing schemes. The handset becomes the ticket machine and the ticket. As the ticket is virtual, it is accepted instantly when tapped on a reader.”

“We are proud of this strategic partnership with ITSO to enable a first of its kind mobile ticketing service. The solution utilises IDEMIA’s field proven digital enablement platform, deployed at scale in a dozen of countries and provisioning millions of cards across all major wallets” added Pierre Barrial, IDEMIA, Executive Vice-President for Financial Institutions activities.

“Unicard, experts in ITSO solutions and in the UK public sector transport are very excited to be part of this innovative project by ITSO. This solution demonstrates our ability to assemble highly qualified technical teams to design and deliver difficult technical projects. We have exceeded in delivering on time and with quality that will provide the passenger this modern and easy to use, means on payment on public transport” added Peter Verrept, Unicard, Managing Director.

The innovative solution will attract many passenger groups. Whether it be students or daily commuters, season ticket or concessionary card holders. Instead of waiting in line at a vending machine or ticket office, you are able to plan and buy your ticket anytime, anywhere and in real-time. No more delayed downloads, collecting tickets from booths or ticket machines, no queuing and hassle-free boarding.

Like all existing ITSO smart card solutions, the technology on the phone will provide a strong security management system that guarantees the security of the transaction data at all times and enables interoperability, meaning passengers can travel at ease between different modes of transport.

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