ContactlessNews | D.C.'s Metro looks for a new open fare payment system

Thursday, December 30, 2010

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has begun accepting proposals from tech firms to replace its SmarTrip fare system, according to tbd.com.

The Metro, which provides rapid transit services to Washington D.C. and its suburbs, is looking for an open fare system that uses “contactless, chip-enabled debit and credit cards, federal ID cards, or smart phones equipped with NFC capability, as well as existing SmarTrip cards,” reports tbd.com.

According to Metro spokeswoman Angela Gates, the new system is intended only to offer additional forms of payment, allowing the 1.8 million SmarTrip cards in circulation a few more years of use.

The Open Standard for Public Transport (OSPT) Alliance announced that austriamicrosystems has joined as a full member.

Since joining the OSPT Alliance, austriamicrosystems will have access to the CIPURSE open standard specification, leveraging its experience into embedded systems for mobile fare collection applications. The open standard promotes vendor neutrality and cross-vendor system interoperability with reduced technology adoption risks, higher quality and improved market responsiveness.

Denizbank joins Cep-T Cuzdan NFC payments platform

Denizbank, a private bank with 588 branches in Turkey, has joined Turkcell’s Cep-T Cuzdan platform, enabling its customers to make contactless payments with their NFC-enabled handsets.

Turkcell launches NFC-enabled handset from ZTE

Chinese handset manufacturer ZTE has partnered with Turkcell, Turkey’s largest mobile operator, to offer a new SIM-based NFC mobile device for the Turkish market.

The Turkcell T11 handset (aka the ZTE Racer II) can be used to pay for both highway toll payments and items at the point of sale with a simple tap against a contactless reader.

Cubic launches new transit platform for contactless fare collection

Cubic Transportation Systems has introduced Nextaccount, an account-based open payment platform that offers travelers the convenience to use contactless bank cards, student IDs and mobile phones as their smart ticket, in addition to transit issued smart cards.

Comments