Claude Camilli, a longtime ticketing official with Paris transport authority, Île-de-France Mobilités, when asked last week why the authority doesn’t support open-loop payments, responded that costs are too high. He added that the authority had decided a better option for customers was for IDFM to expand use of closed-loop payments with smartphones, he told Mobility Payments.
It’s a common refrain by transport-ticketing officials in Paris, which remains one of the few European capitals that has declined to launch open loop as a payments option.