While the transport ticketing industry has seen rapid technological evolution in recent years, most fare collection systems are still reliant on proprietary tickets, on-premise infrastructure and specialist (expensive) hardware.
However, a revolution is taking place, with new ticket media and ticketing models disrupting the market. Trends such as Account Based Ticketing, Mobility as a Service and Bring Your Own Ticket, together with the ability, for the first time, for organisations to take full advantage of the benefits of cloud computing are making the implementation of new, more convenient, ticketing technologies easier, faster and more cost-effective.
Here are the top 10 trends taking place in the fare collection industry that every transport provider needs to be aware of:
- Dematerialisation (Bring Your Own Ticket or BYOT). Reducing (to one day potentially remove) issuing physical tickets, increasing convenience and reducing costs.
- The rise of Account Based Ticketing (ABT) - the ‘tap and ride’ experience. Moving intelligence to the back office enables tickets to become tokens so passengers can simply tap and ride.
- Enabling Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) for public transit. Ensure the public transport network can enable MaaS and interface with 3rd party mobility services.
- The development of cloud-native scalability. Quick to deploy, truly scalable, architected for the cloud, world-class redundancy.
- The use of subscribe & go ticketing services. From slow and costly “build and maintain” systems to “subscribe, go and grow” services.
- Continuous innovation - One update, all agencies benefit. One of the benefits of signing up to a central fare payments platform is that all agency subscribers can take advantage of regular product updates and new features as they become available.
- Outcome-based procurement or results based buying. When you focus on business outcomes rather than on prescriptive technical specifications you open up disruptive innovation to find new solutions to old problems and incentivise the right outcomes.
- Open integrations (API centric architecture). Systems need to be open to integrate with 3rd party technologies enabling new best-of-breed services, customization and upgrades.
- Digital ticketing for everyone. Ensuring equity while reducing the cost of expensive cash-based single trips to a minimum.
- Minimising infrastructure. Combining all the above has led to the trend of minimising infrastructure, reducing the need for ticket vending machines or custom server infrastructure, possibly leaving tickets for the cash payers and validation units as the last standing pieces of physical stuff we may need for some time.
All these trends can be delivered quickly and effectively by utilising a Fare Payments-as-a-Service approach. Instead of purchasing a bespoke Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) system, agencies can now sign up to a service delivered via a Fare Payments platform removing the cost, risk and complexity of providing the latest fare payment innovations and allowing agencies to concentrate on what they do best, operating safe, reliable and convenient transit services to riders.
Download our latest e-book, Top 10 Trends in Fare Collection, to learn more. We hope you like it. 
