Moscow Metro Launches Test of Facial Recognition Fare Payments Ahead of Rollout; Agency Says Masks Can Slow Verification
Moscow Metro announced that it is officially testing facial recognition-based fare payments at turnstiles, with plans to roll out the technology by the end of the year.
Case Study: German City First to Go Live with Check-in/be-out System in Country
Despite the growing popularity of contactless, NFC and QR-code technologies for electronic fare-collection systems, some transit agencies are experimenting with other technologies to collect fares. That includes Germany’s Stadtwerke Osnabrück, which launched the first check-in/be-out system in the country last October in the city of Osnabrück.
Case Study: BONNsmart Project Seeks to Introduce Open-Loop Payments to Cash-Loving Germany
SWB Bus and Bahn, the transit agency serving the city of Bonn, is the first such operator in Germany to accept contactless EMV payments.
Fare System Supplier: Check-in/Be-out Systems Have Advantages Some Transit Agencies Looking for
The city of Hamburg, Germany, will launch a Bluetooth Low Energy-based “check in, be out” fare collection system on its buses and trains later this year.
Case Study: One U.S. Transit Agency’s Journey toward Eliminating Cash
Dayton Regional Transit Authority in the U.S. plans to eliminate cash fares by the end of the year, an agency representative told Mobility Payments, with an expanded rollout of contactless payments. That includes introducing account-based ticketing and lining up 200 cash-loading outlets in the city for customers without bank cards.
Google Expands Parking Payments to Another City as it Continues to Build Google Pay Fare Hub
Google will enable users to pay for parking with U.S.-based parking locator and payments vendor ParkMobile within its Google Pay app starting this month in Atlanta, GA, as the search giant continues to seek to make its payments app a transit-ticketing and parking-fare-payments hub.
Transit Agency Sells Passes for Bikes and Buses through Trip-Planning App, though Cash Still Reigns
RTC of Southern Nevada, the main transit agency serving Las Vegas and the surrounding region, now enables customers to buy passes for bike share in addition to tickets for buses through the trip-planning Transit app. Although the implementation is relatively small, project backers say Las Vegas is the first U.S. city to launch bike share and transit passes in the same app.