An agreement has been signed between the SIA and the Unicocampania Consortium which will see trials begin for contactless credit and debit card payments in regards to the purchasing of local public transport tickets in Italy’s Campania region.
When fully implemented, the scheme will provide travellers to the Campania region with a simpler, quicker and more secure method of payment for their tickets on public transport networks by using cards equipped with NFC technology as well as virtualized versions which can be used on both smartphones and wearable devices.
Eugenio Tornaghi, Director of Marketing & Sales at SIA, stated: “Thanks to SIA’s technology, Campania will be the first region in Italy to adopt an integrated digital payment system in the field of public transport. We are particularly proud of this, because it provides further confirmation of our contribution to the path of innovation that our country has taken and along which it is progressively accelerating.
“Soon Naples and all the other main Campania municipalities will enter the ranks of the big cities – like Milan, Venice and Rome – which are using our platform to digitize millions of tickets. In this way electronic payments are becoming an increasing part of the daily life of citizens and the standard alternative to cash.”
The innovative service will work based off of SIA’s technology infrastructure that is set to connect all the terminals where cards can be swiped to access the public transport network in the Campania region. As well as this, SIA’s technology will also access payment circuits and the regional system in order to accurately calculate tariffs.
These advanced features will allow the traveller to benefit from the best available tariff based on the number of trips made. Moreover it will allow for the management, authorization, accounting and reporting of payment transactions thus supporting the development of Smart Mobility.
Gaetano Ratto, Chairman of Unicocampania, added: “The Unicocampania Consortium has been, since its inception, a pioneer in tariff integration, realizing one of the most complex models by number of actors involved and by territorial extension.
“That pioneering spirit is still present today and the Consortium is preparing to face a new challenge, that of EMV, in a context that over the years has grown to become even more complex given that, alongside the integrated tariff, today the Consortium also manages a large part of those of the individual companies.
“We are therefore ready, within the broader framework of the investments that the Campania Region is making in technological development, to face – supported by a prestigious partner like SIA – a new chapter in the long history of Unicocampania’s achievements.”
Moreover, SIA’s infrastructure is also set to make it possible for users to use credit cards as travel season tickets. This will be made available to travellers who purchase an online season ticket with a contactless credit card, as following the payment the user will then be able to to travel on the entire public transport network of the Campania region through the use of the payment card.
