Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) has received a contract worth $10.2 million, from Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) to deliver a trial of direct credit card payment public transport ticket technology to Sydney.
The trial, to begin in 2017, will allow Sydney commuters of participating payment schemes to tap their contactless bankcard directly on Opal readers at the trial site to pay for travel.
“Sydney is leading the way in this part of the world with the open payments technology, being the first city to deploy such technology in Australia and the southern hemisphere,” says Cubic Transportation Systems senior vice president and managing director (Asia Pacific) Tom Walker.
“Technology elements of both the London and Chicago systems will be incorporated in the new Sydney contactless project, leveraging the best of both combined with the award-winning Opal system.”
“The NSW Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Andrew Constance has announced his desire to transform TfNSW into a technology-driven organisation and this is a clear demonstration of that strategy. Cubic is very proud to be part of this open loop trial.”
Contactless ticketing was first launched on London buses in 2012 and then rolled out across the entire public transport system in the London capital in 2014. More than 600 million journeys have now been made, using over 12 million credit and debit cards from 97 countries, in addition to the use of mobile devices.
As part of Cubic’s technology delivery to Sydney, the Opal smart card ticketing system, which completed its rollout across all modes in late 2014, was intentionally future-proofed to enable the new open payment technology to be added-on —once it had been proved in other major world markets.