Towards a New Contactless Transit Solution in the UK

• British telco EverythingEverywhere and public transport operator Stagecoach have announced they were joining hands in view of rolling out a nationwide mobile contactless ticketing solution.

• A preliminary trial is underway on the Stagecoach bus network in Cambridgeshire. Passengers equipped with compatible Smartphones and installed Orange’s Quick Tap solution can purchase and validate their tickets by waving their handset near the dedicated readers onboard.

• This pilot experiment shall obtain Governmental agreement before it might be rolled out nationwide as of 2013.

Source: Press release

• With time, this project should allow for the creation of a new standard setting the use of public transportation tickets. The programme has been intended to be phased in until global deployment is reached by end 2014.

• With QuickTap used in this context, Orange turns its strategy towards the payments industry. Its mobile contactless payment solution started out in may 2011 with the help of Barclaycard when the multi-application OnePulse card was launched.