Rio pilots NFC for public transportation
18 October, 2013
category: Contactless, NFC, Transit
Rio de Janeiro is set to be one of the first cities in Brazil to launch a pilot program enabling mobile NFC for public transportation. This initiative is a partnership between RioCard Tecnologia da Informação, Gemalto, Motorola Mobility and mobile operators – Claro, Oi, Telefónica and TIM, supported by the GSMA.
Two hundred users of buses, trains and ferries have been selected to collaborate with these companies. Smart phones will be used as mobile wallets embedded with NFC technology to enable secure payment for public transportation tickets. Contactless technology was first adopted in Rio de Janeiro with RioCard in 2003 and is now a part of the daily routine of millions of users.
To pay for the transportation, users will place their NFC-enabled smart phone, a Motorola RAZR D3 –which has been exclusively selected for the pilot – within a few inches of the RioCard reader terminal. An app also allows users to easily check transit fare balances on the screen at any time or place.
Gemalto is also providing its UpTeq multi tenant NFC SIM cards with embedded Mifare4Mobile technology to protects the users’ credentials. As technology needs evolve in the future, with the addition of Gemalto’s Trusted Service Manager (TSM) platform the solution will be able to support the introduction of an extensive range of value-added services.
The three-month, collaborative pilot is expected to conclude in December 2013