A Proposal for a Mobile Ticketing Solution for Metropolitan Area of Oporto Public Transport

Abstract

The use of mobile phones to make payments is already a wide-spreading reality. While some mobile payment solutions achieved a considerable success and are already in use, others failed in the pilot phase. Nevertheless, there is an area where mobile payments have been quite successful: mobile ticketing in public transport. In fact, there are several advantages of mobile ticketing over traditional ticketing systems, such as queue avoidance, ubiquitous and remote access to payment, and the lack of need to carry coins and cash. This paper intends to propose a mobile payment system to be implemented in the Public Transport of Metropolitan Area of Oporto. After defining the payment ticketing model, a prototype was developed and tested by a sample of users. These tests allowed gathering some feedback about the feasibility of the system as well as useful insights about the concept, new in public transport in Portugal. The findings attained so far suggest that users considered the system extremely useful, since it is more convenient than traditional systems, improving the travelling process and experience. It was also clear that users valued the integration of additional and complementary services with mobile payments, such as real-time traffic information, maps and schedules. There are also several barriers to the adoption of such a system elicited by users, such as premium price, complex interfaces and perceived risks, such as security and privacy concerns.