The pandemic accelerated the digitalisation of transit tickets and payment systems. Handling paper tickets and cash had become a source of concern in the customer journey. With their ordinary work schedules in disarray and facing a period of uncertainty, many passengers turned to buying single tickets, with no further commitment.
Even before the health crisis, Keolis had already become the first operator to provide Open Payment in France. That was in Dijon in 2018. The concept? Enable passengers to validate their bus tickets using their credit card or the payment card on their smartphone at a validation kiosk. Unlike payment upon validation, which counts each trip one by one, Open Payment applies the best fare to passengers after the trip, based on their public transport use over a given period (such as one day).
Open Payment: a contactless payment system that allows passengers to pay for their travel with a payment card and to be debited later for their journeys, applying the best rate available to the passenger based on their public transport use over a given period (such as one day).
Payment upon validation: a contactless payment system that allows passengers to use a credit or debit card or smartphone as a ticket, but unlike open payment, it counts each trip one by one throughout the day and does not apply a preferential fare throughout the day.
1. When boarding the bus, passengers validate their credit card or the payment card activated on their smartphone at the validation terminal, just as they would swipe their transit card, which means no physical contact with the driver, and an end to payment receipts and paper tickets.
2. During ticket inspections, passengers can prove they purchased their ticket by scanning or swiping their credit card or smartphone.
3. To check their purchases and amounts, they can download their receipts and review their transit history using an online portal.
4. If they make multiple trips, they will automatically benefit from the best fare. For example, the price of a day pass will apply starting with the third validated trip, allowing them to benefit on that day from an unlimited number of trips at a capped fare.
In addition to drastically reducing the printing of large quantities of paper tickets, Open Payment meets the new expectations of passengers following the Covid-19 crisis and digitizes the user experience. Indeed, this system makes the customer's journey more fluid, avoiding queues at the station or the purchase of a ticket from the bus driver. Contactless payment also reduces "coerced theft" during boarding due to the lack of change or busy drivers. In addition, it simplifies access to the transit network for occasional users, who may live on or near the network but who do not regularly use public transport, as well as passing users, such as tourists.
Given the system's success - with an average of 25-30% of ticket sales made with Open Payment since its launch - Keolis is now working on nine Open Payment projects in France (Nevers, Tarbes, Amiens, Aix-en-Provence, etc.). One way to optimize the system is to enable contactless payment for multiple trips using a single credit card or single payment card activated on a smartphone. This feature is currently being tested in the Nevers and Tarbes transit systems, where passengers can select the number of tickets they wish to purchase by clicking on the validation screen.
In Besançon, the Open Payment solution deployed on the Ginko network since January 2022 allows users to pay for up to nine passengers with a single contactless bank card, a smartphone or a smart watch at one of the onboard validation terminals. Grand Besançon Métropole and Keolis Besançon Mobilités have chosen to integrate the new Open Payment functions within the existing validation model. This makes it possible to have a single validation model, which simplifies the act of validation and makes it easier for the user.
25-30
%
of sales made with Open Payment since the launch of the system in Dijon
9
Open Payment projects launched on our networks in France: Nevers, Tarbes, Amiens, Aix-en-Provence...
