Australia’s iconic SkyBus airport bus transfer service to enable passengers to simply tap their contactless bank card or mobile device when boarding
Melbourne, AUS - Wednesday 25th October 2023 – SkyBus, the award-winning airport bus service operating in Melbourne and Hobart, has launched an Open Payments solution allowing passengers to simply tap their contactless bank card or mobile device when boarding.
The new contactless EMV (cEMV) payment system, powered by Masabi’s account-based ticketing platform Justride, the world’s most advanced open platform for public transport fare payments, and is currently being piloted on SkyBus’ Hobart Airport-City route. It allows passengers to board without the need to pre-purchase a ticket or select a fare, significantly increasing the convenience for passengers who can simply tap and ride using their physical credit or debit card or a digitally stored card on their mobile device.
Littlepay was selected as the specialist transit payments services partner. Littlepay’s cloud-
based, PCI-compliant platform accepts incoming card taps, integrates with payments
schemes and provides a full service open payments solution for transit. Littlepay’s modular
approach integrates seamlessly with third party transit back office solutions such as
Masabi’s Justride, allowing operators to quickly and easily “switch on” cEMV acceptance
without the complexity of a bespoke project.
“This is another example of how we’re continually innovating in how we can improve the ease and convenience of our services for passengers,” said Michael Sewards, co-CEO at SkyBus. “It adds to other easy ways people can purchase SkyBus tickets, including via our website, the SkyBus app and our e-kiosks at departure points.”
“Airport transfers are an essential tool in safely and conveniently conveying passengers to their flights, reducing unnecessary car journeys and minimising disruptive congestion around often busy airport road networks. But no-one wants an additional complication on their way to the airport and by introducing cEMV, SkyBus is making journeys as easy as they can be,” said Brian Zanghi, CEO at Masabi. “We’re proud to be continuing our excellent work with SkyBus, using our best-in-class modular solution, open platform, and open partnership approach to bring a world class transport ticketing and payments experience to people travelling to and from airports across Australia.”
Dave Lennon, Head of Industry – Government and Healthcare, Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand, said, “We are thrilled to continue our strategic relationship with Masabi and be an integral part of this transformative journey of SkyBus to reshape the future of public transport. We are proud to support Skybus on its mission to increase the usage of public transport and reduce of the usage of private cars, so we can jointly meet our sustainability goals laid out in Fujitsu’s Climate and Energy Vision. Together, we are driving innovation in the transport industry to deliver an efficient, sustainable, and customer-centric travel experience.”
Commonwealth Bank (CBA) was appointed as the merchant acquirer for the Open Payments solution.
Deborah Leerhsen, Executive General Manager Global Institutional Banking Coverage at CBA, said, “CBA is proud to support SkyBus in bringing innovation and efficiency to both domestic and international travellers seeking airport transfer services around the country. This solution will make it easier for arriving passengers to use the SkyBus service, and enable SkyBus to deliver on its strategic and growth ambitions.
Amin Shayan, CEO at Littlepay said, “This deployment demonstrates that collaborative partnerships can deliver greater innovation and superior customer outcomes for public transport. We’ve collaborated with Masabi on a number of exciting projects and we are proud to see this relationship hit another milestone with Skybus.”
This launch has been made possible thanks to Masabi’s Justride platform, the most advanced open platform for public transport fare payments. Transport authorities and operators that sign up to the platform no longer need to purchase their own design-and-build bespoke ticketing systems, which are expensive, slow, and risky to deploy, and do not update regularly with new features and functionality unless significant amounts of money are invested. Instead, using a Fare Payments-as-a-Service approach, authorities and operators can benefit from the latest innovations such as Account Based Ticketing and fare capping delivered quickly and cost-effectively, with regular feature updates everyone benefits from. Masabi delivers a robust and advanced open platform for fare payments, providing public transport operators and authorities with a scalable, easy-to-integrate, and cost-effective modular solution, enhancing the transit experience through continuous updates, flexible configurations, and a wealth of integrations.
The solution is built on Masabi’s open platform and its expansive partner ecosystem. SkyBus' partnership with Masabi, which was first announced in 2022 alongside Fujitsu, leverages the award-winning Justride open platform which uses predefined integration points to connect with LittlePay (Payment Service Provider), Mastercard Gateway and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the acquirer.