Do You Know Account-Based Ticketing?

No more paper tickets, no more transport passes, no more coin machines and figuring out if you need a transfer or 2-zone ticket for your public transport journey.

Instead, just place a contactless credit or debit card or mobile phone or smart watch on a travel ticket marker (called a validator) and you can travel where you want and for how long you need. When you get off, you can place your card or mobile phone back on the ticket validator to ensure that you've paid the lowest fare possible.

If you're transferring, you place your card, mobile phone or smartwatch to the ticket validator each time you exit and board, and the system calculates in the background how much you've paid for all your journeys that day and charges the resulting amount to your card.

This is how the Acount-based ticketing solution developed by our colleagues in Bratislava works. It is a part of the FareGo Suite product – a comprehensive, intuitive, and reliable next-generation fare management system. It mainly supports digital fare collection (mobile apps, contactless or open payments) which complements the classic public transport ticketing options (cash, ticket machines, transport passes).

If a passenger chooses one of the Account-based ticketing options – an app for mobile phones, smart watches or a credit/debit card that will serve as their identifier when travelling on public transport, they will not only contribute to environmental protection but will also save time and especially money. Read an example of how this system calculates the best price for the passenger.

Fares:

• hourly transfer ticket for 1 zone – 3 €;
• 2-zone transfer ticket – 4 €;
• 24-hour 1-zone ticket – 8,8 €;
• 24-hour 2-zone ticket – 11,50 €.

A passenger boards a bus that passes through 2 zones. They place their credit card to the validator and the system generates a 2-zone transfer ticket (4 €). The ticket is virtual, it only exists in the back office system. When the passenger gets off at a stop within 1 zone after 40 minutes, they place their card to the validator and the system evaluates that the passenger will not pay the 2-zone ticket, but only withdraws 3 € from the card for the 1-zone ticket.

If the passenger travels this way 5 times in a 24-hour period, in the worst case they will only pay 8.8 € (24-hour 1-zone ticket). Why? If they use public transport within 1 hour of buying the previous ticket, they don’t need another ticket because they already have a valid ticket. Only when the price of the single tickets exceeds the price of the 24-hour ticket, the system will replace all single tickets with the 24-hour ticket. At the end of the day, the bank will only charge the passenger 8.8 € per ticket.

Thanks to Account-based ticketing, passengers no longer have to stand in front of a ticket machine and decide which ticket is the right one for them. Our developers have done it for them in their app. The system handles everything itself and charges the passenger the lowest fare amount.

Another advantage is that when checking the tickets, the passenger doesn't have to look where they put their ticket or worry if they forgot their transport pass at home. Everyone carries their credit/debit card with them or has it loaded on their mobile phone or smart watch.

You can try out the solution from Scheidt & Bachmann, for example, on public transport in Bonn, Germany. For the local transport company – Standwerke Bonn (SWB) – we launched the 1st contactless ticketing system for public transport in the whole of Germany in 2020. Our common goal was to improve the customer experience for passengers, streamline operations and reduce ticketing costs. Passengers don't need to buy traditional tickets; they just place their contactless card on the ticket validator when boarding/exiting public transport. Contactless ticket purchase is possible on all 230 buses and 99 trains of SWB.

For more than 150 years, our company has been shaping the future of mobility. We design, develop, test and manufacture solutions (all in-house) that are used by millions of people every day in more than 50 countries around the world. If you want a job that you'll be proud of because it's truly meaningful, become a part of Scheidt & Bachmann.

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