Tap to ride the contactless momentum

Enabling open-loop contactless payments in mass transit can help bring more riders onboard with the ease and simplicity of tap to ride.

If you're anything like me, contactless payments are part of your everyday life. As well as tapping to pay with my EMV? credit or debit card, I can my store my card details in a digital wallet so I can make contactless payments with my smartphone or smartwatch instead.

Tap to ride is a natural extension of that simplicity and convenience. When you don't have to buy a physical ticket each time you take the bus, train, tram or metro, public transport can become a more accessible and attractive choice.

Tap to ride in 500+ cities

More than 500 cities have implemented open-loop contactless tap-to-ride payment solutions in their transportation system.* For visitors and occasional riders in particular, it removes a number of barriers to using public transport. If I can tap to ride when I travel to a new city, I'm much more likely to use public transport than hop in a cab.

That's because tap to ride means I don't have to queue to buy a ticket, obtain or top up the local transit operator's closed-loop card, or understand the fare structure. With the same contactless EMV? card or digital wallet I use to pay for all sorts of other things, I can simply tap to ride to my destination.

Open loop benefits for transit operators

Open-loop systems offer transit operators a positive rate of return. Reducing the need to issue and manage proprietary cards or tickets can mean considerable cost savings—and less waste. On top of that, contactless helps to alleviate pressure points at ticket machines and offices, reducing lines and crowds.

Implementing contactless payments at a regional or national level can expand the benefits further by allowing people to tap to ride public transport over a larger geographic area. This can boost ridership and tourism, and make public transport an easy-to-use (and greener) alternative to private cars, taxis and ride-hailing services.

At the other end of the scale, contactless tap-to-ride can also open up public transport in markets where simple systems make more sense. Instead of installing turnstiles for riders to tap, a transit operator can have them tap a smartphone or tablet to pay as they board the bus or other form of transport. This 'tap to phone' capability shows that contactless payments have the potential to reach and benefit almost everyone.

Tokenization for security, compliance, efficiency—and more

In most cases when we tap to pay, we know it will take a few moments for the transaction to be authorized. That brief delay doesn't matter when you're buying groceries, say, or paying for a meal; but those moments spent authorizing every contactless tap-to-ride transaction in real time would soon add up, causing long lines at turnstiles and leading to widespread frustration.

Fortunately, innovation in token management services overcomes this issue, allowing passengers seamless access while maintaining security and compliance. So, when I tap to ride, the service tokenizes my 16-digit EMV? card number 'in the moment,' so I can step straight onto the tram, train or other form of transit. That token can then be transmitted, along with the transaction data, to PCI?DSS–compliant storage for deferred authorization at the end of the day. This type of solution also reduces the PCI?DSS compliance burden on the transit operator and its solution partners.

A further benefit of tokenization is that it allows a transit operator to gain a complete view of each passenger and recognize them whenever they travel. This opens the door to a world of innovation that can help meet passengers' expectations around choice, value and ease of use. Tokenization in an open-loop system can, for example, enable sophisticated fare management, such as daily, weekly or monthly fare caps that enable effortless cost savings for regular tap-to-ride users.

An open payment platform: a foundation for innovation

To support and adapt to an ever-expanding range of payment options, a transit operator's ticketing and payment acceptance system can benefit from an open, modular payment platform—one that can securely handle mass transit transaction volumes and schemes, as well as multiple payment channels and distinctive transit authorization needs.

Working with a payment partner who understands mass transit payment acceptance, and provides access to tokenization and other services, can help ensure a foundation that will enable the next generation of urban mobility payments and value-added services.

So, are you ready to create new payment experiences for riders? Read our latest guide to discover how you can incorporate secure, cost-effective, and scalable solutions that simplify payment acceptance and help you to keep pace with the evolving payment landscape - today and tomorrow.

* Source: "Tap to Ride – Whole Nation & Regional Contactless Payments for Urban Mobility," Visa, 2022.