Card reloading

The principle is simple: instead of going to a vending machine to buy a ticket or to recharge your pass, your smartphone becomes your vending machine. No need to queue at the machine, take off your mittens to use a touch screen or take out your bank card in the street to pay!

In concrete terms, after downloading the application for your transport network, you choose the ticket that suits you and pay for it, all from your mobile. Then comes the reloading step: you put your transport card on the back of your smartphone and the ticket is loaded in a few seconds thanks to contactless technology! This service also allows you to reload other cards such as your children’s and all from your couch. You’ve always dreamed of it, NFC has done it!

Your smartphone will also allow you to easily read the content of your card: for example, the validity of your remaining tickets or your last validations. Thanks to the smartphone screen, your transportation card comes to life and the information it contains becomes accessible!

Already offered in the Ile de France, Lille, Rennes and Toulouse transport systems, card recharging turns the smartphone into an automatic sales machine available 24 hours a day and accessible wherever you are. All you need is network coverage.

For the transport operators, this service allows to fluidify the traffic in the station where the long queues at the beginning of the month hinder the circulation and can make difficult the social distanciation. It also offers travelers who are far from the sales points a simple way to buy their ticket.

The dematerialization of titles on cell phones

With the dematerialization service for transport tickets, the experience is 100% mobile. We say goodbye to our plastic card! Your smartphone is transformed: it acts as a vending machine and a transportation card at the same time. We no longer forget our passwords at home, simply because we rarely forget our phone! No more running out of the TGV to get to the vending machine first, and no more running through the subway gates in style while impressing your new office mate.

The beginning of the course is similar to the reloading. You download the application of your transport network, you choose your ticket and you pay from your smartphone. Once the payment is accepted, the vouchers are directly loaded into a digital safe hosted in your cell phone. Then it’s very simple! To validate your ticket or when you are controlled, you simply present your smartphone on the validation equipment or control device, such as a plastic card, and the ticket is automatically recognized.

For transport operators, the dematerialization of the card on the smartphone is therefore the grail. Their customers’ mobiles become both vending machines and transport cards. The equipment maintenance and card management chains (acquisition, loss or theft) are simplified. Transport operators are thus opening up a new, totally secure ticket distribution channel that is integrated into their existing ticketing system and processes.

Whether it is the reloading service or the dematerialization of cards, the benefits for both travelers and transport operators are notable. The entire range of fares is accessible to all, regular or occasional travelers, and the after-sales service chain can be entirely digitalized. This long-awaited digital transformation is finally possible.

Originally reserved only for owners of certain smartphones, this service of dematerializing a Calypso standard transport card is now accessible to all Android smartphones thanks to the generalization of NFC. It will also be available soon on iPhone as announced by Apple, which has already successfully launched this service in Japan, China and the United States.

So, card reloading or dematerialization? Both of them!

Card reloading and dematerialization are two very complementary solutions based on the same NFC technology used to enhance the customer experience and security, and which meet the needs of different uses and customer groups.

Card reloading allows passengers who already have a transport card to buy tickets for themselves and their loved ones, anywhere and at any time. It’s a simple digital service that meets travelers’ expectations and is already accessible to all NFC smartphones. It improves the service for all travelers, including those who do not yet have smartphones (seniors, children…).

Dematerialization goes even further, eliminating the need for a plastic card. It is therefore suitable for all frequent and occasional mobility uses. Its seamless integration into mobile applications and digital uses guarantees an even simpler customer experience. Its security allows the integration of the entire range of fares, from single tickets to annual subscriptions, and even eliminates the need to purchase tickets by integrating post-payment via a customer account. The ability to dematerialize several different cards in the same smartphone makes it the ideal support for global mobility solutions (MaaS).

After the meteoric evolution of contactless payments in 2020, Transport is preparing to make available mTicket services that are highly anticipated by travelers. Wizway, the European leader in NFC transport solutions on smartphones, facilitates the deployment of these solutions.

^[1] https://www.banques-en-ligne.fr/actualites/detail.php?idactu=4030/2020-le-paiement-sans-contact-ramasse-la-mise