Commuters in the greater Paris region will be able to use their NFC mobile phone to store Navigo transit passes and T+ prepaid ticket books starting in September 2019. nfc mobile ticketing Paris

This follows the completion of a pilot of the new Smart Navigo service in the French capital in which 14,000 commuters downloaded the mobile app, and 88% of users said they would use the service in the future.

“The aim is to gradually replace the magnetic ticket with new contactless media such as the smartphone,” explains the region’s transportation authority, Île-de-France Mobilités.

“I want to make Île-de-France the first smart region in Europe,” says the authority’s president, Valérie Pécresse.

“Thanks to this new service, there’s no more waiting at the station or station ticket machine to recharge your Navigo pass or buy tickets. Purchase and validation of the ticket will be possible from all compatible mobile phones.”

Smart Navigo uses the SIM card in a commuter’s smartphone to store tickets and passes, enabling them to use the service even if their smartphone is switched off.

Initially, the service will be restricted to commuters with an NFC phone that supports Samsung Pay or an Android NFC phone supplied by mobile network operator Orange.

“For others, discussions are currently underway with major smartphone manufacturers to extend the offer to all users,” says Île-de-France Mobilités.

It forecasts that there will be more than 20,000 users of the service this year, rising to 300,000+ by 2020 and ultimately over 3 million.

Currently, 4.3 million commuters purchase a monthly Navigo pass, 440 million tickets are sold in the region each year, and more than 50,000 ticket validators have been deployed across the region.

The system has been developed by a consortium of companies, including Dejamobile, Gemalto and Wizway, and incorporates Dejamobile’s ReadyToTap transport solution.nfc mobile ticketing Paris