German m-ticketing moving nationwide

The public transport authority of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main region (RMV), T-Systems, Nokia and Venyon have announced the next phase for RMV m-ticketing at the international NFC Forum meeting in Frankfurt am Main in Germany.

The new m-ticketing solution based on NFC will offer a wider variety of mobile tickets as well as improved user experience. RMV introduced its m-ticketing scheme in 2006 and is one of the pioneers in this area (MPW 66, 104).

The main target of this enhanced ticketing solution is to enable customers to purchase m-tickets even more spontaneously and easily. The ticket will now be stored in the embedded secure element of the NFC- enabled mobile phone, and can be inspected just by holding the device close to the inspector's reading device, which checks the validity of the ticket. This takes only a few milliseconds without any further interaction from the customer.

Soon it will be possible to store the ticket in the SIM card of the mobile phone, and then the ticket will be removable and re-usable in case the customer switches to another NFC-enabled mobile phone.

The solution is based on the German-wide e-ticket standard (VDV), to be used with NFC-enabled mobile phones. Thus the tickets in mobile phones and in plastic smart cards can be inspected by the same inspecting device and the ticketing systems aligned with VDV standard allow buying tickets also in other regions in Germany. The same consistent user experience applies to the public transportation in all participating cities in Germany, which brings significant benefits for travellers who frequently use public transportation in different cities.

The mobile NFC ticketing now introduced in Frankfurt is based on the common NFC standards and enables wider selection of tickets, like single tickets, daily tickets and monthly tickets for the RMV transport network. Based on NFC standards, the new Nokia 6212 classic as well as the Nokia 6131 NFC can be used for m-ticketing in this project. At the same time as the NFC m-ticketing, RMV will enlarge the availability of so called ‘ConTags', smart tags, which are installed at bus and train stops in Frankfurt. Soon the ConTags will cover all the bus and train stops of all the remaining 11 cities in RMV service area.

Touching ConTags with the NFC phone enables quick ticket purchases, online time schedules, journey planners and news services. Customers can retrieve information on departure times, possible delays or special schedules real-time just by touching the ConTag at the station with their NFC phones.