Passengers travelling on buses operated by Palm Bus in Cannes, France, can now make contactless fare payments with their EMV debit or credit card or with Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay from their NFC smartphone or smartwatch.  The Cannes Lérins Agglomération supports this modernisation of the ticketing system, in collaboration with Palm Bus, Kuba, Littlepay and La Banque Postale. cannes open loop

Palm Bus has rolled out the open loop contactless ticketing system on more than 200 buses across its network, enabling passengers to pay their fares by tapping their card or mobile device on an on-board validator without needing to register for the service or purchase a separate transit card.

The solution also supports group ticketing for up to eight people and is now available on all Palm Bus services apart from the City Palm, Suquet and Palm on Demand shuttles.

Littlepay has integrated Kuba’s Vix CP6500 validator and AFC back office to its payments platform, so that cEMV can be added to a range of ticketing options Kuba already provides for Palm Bus, including mobile QR codes and closed-loop smart cards.

Frederic Marandon, DGA Mobility of the Cannes pays de Lérins Agglomération, says: “The deployment of the open payment solution in our region is the result of a long-standing collaboration between our agglomération, our transport company Palm Bus and our technology partner Kuba. The addition of this service, with the support of Littlepay, responds to our mission to simplify access to public transport for our regular and occasional customers.”

Minimising fare evasion cannes open loop

Kuba has used Littlepay’s Inspect API to develop a fare inspection app that will be used to deter fare evasion. This is installed on NFC compatible Android mobile devices, which Palm Bus’ fare inspection staff can use to check passengers’ cards against a list of known taps.

The app removes the need for expensive, PCI-compliant fare inspection hardware to establish whether passengers are travelling with a valid cEMV ‘token’ for travel.

Ticketing and payments excellence

Littlepay provides a modular payments infrastructure that allows integrations with a range of ticketing systems and acquiring banks. The partnership with Kuba is an excellent example of how APIs can be used to integrate with any compatible payment reader and back office, providing cEMV processing within a wider ticketing ecosystem.

“The deployment of our KubaPay solution integrating open payment in partnership with Littlepay on the Palmbus transport network of the urban community of Cannes Pays de Lérins facilitates access to public transport. Our solution, based around the single validator, is the result of our know-how, expertise and a remarkable collaborative effort. We are particularly proud of the addition of this reference which has undoubtedly contributed to new successes to come.” Tarik Dinane Managing Director Kuba France.

Amin Shayan, CEO of Littlepay, said: “It’s been fantastic to develop a contactless system in partnership with Kuba and Palm Bus that co-exists seamlessly with other payment options. This location is also a great place to see how creating a universal payment experience with tap-to-pay can help cities make travel simpler for overseas visitors. Increasingly, transit users understand they can use their bank card as their ticket to ride, wherever they are.”

In Paris, France’s capital and by far its largest city, transit officials have no current plans to support open loop. That is despite the fact that the city will host the Olympics in 2024. The event will bring thousands of foreign visitors to the city, just about all of them packing contactless bank cards.

Sources told Mobility Payments that the situation in Paris is, as one put it, “very complicated.”

Paris regional transit authority, Île-de-France Mobilités, is seeking to take more control over the fare-collection system from such long-standing incumbent transit operators as RATP and SNCF, the latter the region’s major rail operator. But according to sources, RATP, operator of the Paris Metro, buses and trams in the Paris metropolitan area, does not fully support open-loop payment, at least not for now across its massive and complex Paris network.

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