NFC Project “Touch&Travel” moving forwards

Kick-off of the second and pre-commercial phase.

Deutsche Bahn (DB) successfully completed the first phase of its e-ticketing trial Touch&Travel in August, 2008. Together with their partners Vodafone, T-Mobile, Motorola, NXP, Giesecke & Devrient and others the project now moves to phase two. Starting with 500 test users in December 2008 and building up to 2500 users in 2009, Touch & Travel will run on absolute real-world conditions.

In phase two, the user no longer has to purchase a paper ticket in addition to the “Check In” process, but can buy it via the mobile phone. All transactions will be processed and completed by the extended background system of the Deutsche Bahn and at the end of each month, the user will receive an invoice. In addition, the test areas have been extended to include not only regional transport in Hannover-Berlin, but also the whole S-Bahn and U-Bahn lines in the city areas of Potsdam/Berlin.

Registration for test users in the Hannover-Berlin area is open till October 31st 2008. If you are interested, you will find more information at: www.touchandtravel.com

Further areas in Schleswig-Holstein along the corridor from Kiel – Eutin – Lübeck are part of another test area working without payment processes.

With new partner T-Mobile on board, more than 60 million mobile customers potentially would have access to Touch & Travel once the pilot has been completed and goes commercial.

BACKGROUND:

Touch&Travel represents a worldwide unique, phone-based eTicketing system which is based on Near Field Communication and post-paid billing.

The ticketing information is securely stored on the SIM card. Giesecke & Devrient is providing their innovative SIM technology for this pilot project.

The technology behind, Near Field Communications, is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that evolved from a combination of existing contactless identification and interconnection technologies.

And this is how it works:

 

1. By simply holding the NFC mobile handset over the so called Touchpoint before entering the train, located at the platforms, the system registers the beginning of a trip. The ticket is securely stored on the SIM card inside the mobile phone.
   
    
2. The conductor checks the validity of a ticket by using a special NFC enabled conductor device. By swiping the mobile phone over to this reader the ticket information stored on the SIM is going to be validated.
   
    
3. Having arrived at the destination, the handset is held to a Touchpoint a second time for logoff. The system registers the end of the trip, processes the logon and logoff data and calculates the cost for the ride.
   
    
4. The passenger is billed once a month.