Worldline and Trapeze deliver a genuine hands-free payment solution for use on public transport

The service has been designed to address the issue of increasing numbers of passengers using public transport and harnesses the power of technology to remove the need to ‘physically’ buy a ticket. The service delivers a truly seamless journey across all public transport of any city or region and improves operational efficiency for the transport company.

How does it work?

The system operates by ‘detecting’ passengers via Bluetooth when they enter any public transport vehicle. From these detections, combined with transport network data, check in and check out taps are created in order to obtain the whole passenger journey. Best tariff calculation including fee capping functionalities is applied to finally trigger the related payment using passenger account information. Passengers are able to check their journey and fare at any time via the solution’s mobile app.

The system incorporates a broad range of functionalities including the detection of smartphones in the transit system, general smartphone travel authorisation, journey construction, lowest fare calculation, payment processing and customer relationship management.

The hands-free ticket payment solution is the result of combining automatic passenger presence detection in transit services with core account-based ticketing functionalities. The service has been made possible using Worldline’s cutting-edge Tap 2 Use solution to handle the journey processing and the passenger’s account management and Trapeze’s ComfoAccess facilities to manage Bluetooth-based automated passenger recognition and virtual validations generation.  Passengers can now avoid queuing for a ticket or to top-up their card needed to validate their journey.

A seamless journey experience

This new way of paying to travel on public transport ensures the simplification of the passenger’s journey with a truly open loop system that is able to handle multiple identification channels, including contactless EMV, mobile ticketing and automatic detection, on one system.

Alejandro Rametta, Digital Ticketing Product Manager at Worldline: “We all live our lives looking for more and more simplicity which equates to one of the most valuable commodities we have: time. Payment simplification gives us back time and this joint initiative with Trapeze delivers a truly valuable time saving and convenient solution.  Public transport passengers are able to travel freely between different methods of transport without the need to queue to buy a ticket for their journey ot topping up a card for a validator device.”

Romeo Oberholze, Ticketing Product Manager at Trapeze: “The time where passengers had to worry about the correct ticket for their journey is over. The hands-free ComfoAccess® solution from Trapeze allows to board any vehicle from all the different modes of transportation without any interaction and provides the best possible comfort. ComfoAccess® records and stores all trip segments in a secure manner, recreates the journeys and hands the information over for the subsequent billing process. Through our partner Worldline we are able to offer a fully integrated ticketing solution ensuring, thus, a superior user experience in public transport – from travelling to payment.”

“On 9-12 June 2019, the international public transport community, mobility decision makers and industry suppliers will come together in Stockholm for the UITP Global Public Transport Summit.”

About Worldline

Worldline [Euronext: WLN] is the European leader in the payment and transactional services industry. With innovation at the core of its DNA, Worldline’s core offerings include pan-European and domestic Commercial Acquiring for physical or online businesses, secured payment transaction processing for banks and financial institutions, as well as transactional services in e-Ticketing and for local and central public agencies. Thanks to a presence in 30+ countries, Worldline is the payment partner of choice for merchants, banks, public transport operators, government agencies and industrial companies, delivering cutting-edge digital services. Worldline’s activities are organized around three axes: Merchant Services, Financial Services including equensWorldline and Mobility & e-Transactional Services. Worldline employs circa 11,000 people worldwide, with estimated pro forma revenue of circa 2.3 billion euros on a yearly basis. worldline.com

About Trapeze Group

Trapeze is a leading global provider of public urban transport solutions. The companies of the Trapeze Group supply cutting-edge software, intelligent transport systems (ITS) and mobile technologies to passenger transport companies. Hundreds of public and commercial companies in North America, Europe, South Africa and Asia use the products of Trapeze to increase their efficiency, improve the quality and scope of their services and move more people safely at lower cost. The Trapeze Group has more than 30 locations in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

Trapeze Switzerland

Trapeze Switzerland GmbH in Neuhausen, Switzerland, is the European headquarters of the Trapeze Group. The company has locations in Germany, France, Great Britain, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, all of which together form the Trapeze ITS Central Europe division. Trapeze offers both large and smaller transport operators comprehensive control and information systems for higher punctuality, shorter travel times and more precise connections as well as dynamic passenger information. Trapeze is internationally present, develops, produces and integrates high-quality operating control systems, on-board computers, passenger information displays at stops and in the vehicle as well as customer-specific services in close cooperation with its customers.

For more information, visit www.trapezegroup.com. The Trapeze Group is part of Constellation Software Inc. (TSX: CSU).

Press contact

Susanne Stöger
+43 171 7016524
susanne.stoeger@worldline.com