Technical Cooperation in Brazil – A meeting at São Paulo to present the latest developments in ticketing

Following on from the topic started at the December 2017 workshop on transport pricing policy in the São Paulo Metropolitan Region, CODATU organized a meeting to present the latest developments in ticketing in Europe. The speaker was Julien de Labaca, consultant, director of transport projects for the New Aquitaine Euroregion Euskadi Navarre and member of the Fabrique des Mobilités. About 15 CPTM, EMTU, METRÔ, STM and Systra Executives participated in this meeting on April 2, 2018.

Julien proposed a grid of analysis of European projects according to three elements: financial, ecological and social aspects.

The advantages and disadvantages of using NFC (Near Field Communication)smartphones (for example, in Strasbourg and London), and other less technological cases like a single multimodal map, were presented. (in Brittany Region and in Gizpukoa Province, Spain).

Other cases still under experimentation or recently deployed from the concept of MaaS (Mobility as a Service) in Mulhouse and Helsinki (Finland) were also mentioned. Finally, Julien spoke of the potentialities and limitations of the blockchain as a solution in urban transport.

During the discussions, CPTM and EMTU shared their experiences in validating securities QR Code. CPTM conducted a pilot project in late 2016 / early 2017, which showed good results. Nevertheless, there would be no possible consequences for the moment. The EMTU has decided to stop the test in a bus terminal because of the high costs of having three turnstile validation technologies (QR Code, Edmonson and smartcard).

Regarding the concept of “wallet” or payment by credit card, METRÔ and EMTU explained that several initiatives, in partnership with different banks, were evaluated. However, a large proportion of the users (about 50%) of the metropolitan transport system do not have a bank account and those who own one do not accept to pay the administrative fees imposed by the service providers. These are some reasons for the failure of the initiative. Local actors believe that mobile phone support could work better since around 70% of users have one.

To conclude, Julien pointed out that, technologically, the options are numerous and technically deployable. The major challenge lies in the need for the public decision-maker to see clearly:

• what are the targets for users, to propose the most appropriate technology to them?;
• what are the objectives for the transport authority?