Many Faces of Mobile Contactless Ticketing
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SMART 2013 : The Second International Conference on Smart Systems, Devices and Technologies Many Faces of Mobile Contactless Ticketing Jonathan Ouoba Erkki Siira LaBRI-University of Bordeaux VTT Technical Research Centre Bordeaux, France Oulu, Finland [email protected] [email protected] Abstract—Smart cities must offer innovative mobile transport or to events is determined by the fact that the users services in the areas of transport and culture. In this hold valid tickets. The ticketing services are therefore context, the ticketing services, which are key elements in essential and mobile-based solutions must be developed. the domains of transport and culture, have to be One of the promising technologies for the mobile services provided. In this respect, the impact of technological is the contactless technology. The vision is that smart cities developments, including those related to NFC (Near can exploit this technology in the domains of transportation Field Communication), which is a short range wireless and culture to offer ticketing services. The trick is that the technology, lead to the deployment of mobile contactless end-user only touches dedicated equipment with the mobile phone, accepts the transaction and gets the access to the solutions. We highlight, in the paper, seven models to proposed service. This is, in our terminology, an example of manage all or part of mobile contactless ticketing mobile contactless city services. Mobile contactless services systems within smart cities. This study is based on the in smart cities are and will be based on Near Field research conducted in the contactless ticketing area and Communication (NFC) [2], which is a wireless technology on the return of experience gained within a European that takes its roots in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). project. The models, which give a realistic picture of the It has a range of about 10 centimeters. NFC offers three various faces of such systems, are: the operator-centric modes of operation: reader/writer, peer-to-peer and card model, the manufacturer-centric model, the emulation. The reader/writer mode makes it possible for identification-based model, the peer-to-peer model, the NFC devices to interact with passive NFC tags. The peer-to- smart card-based model, the leeched smart card-based peer (P2P) mode supports direct communication between model, and the inverse reader model. We detail the NFC devices, and the card emulation mode allows a NFC characteristics of each model and present use cases. device to act as if it were a smart card. In the latter case, in Furthermore, we present tracks indicating that these order to store sensitive data, NFC devices offer support for models may coexist within smart cities and we derive an embedded smart card chip that is called a secure element. some perspectives on the evolution of these ticketing In the framework of the Smart Urban Spaces (SUS) services by explaining that two models could be European project [3], we explored the possibilities offered by dominant. the NFC technology in the field of mobile ticketing for city services. The question that arises is: what are the different Keywords-mobile services; mobile ticketing; contactless; NFC models of efficient NFC-enabled mobile ticketing systems that can be deployed in smart cities. The aim of our work is thus to present and analyze systems dedicated to mobile I. INTRODUCTION contactless ticketing that we consider relevant in the context The concept of smart cities refers to cities that have of smart cities. In the remaining of the paper, we first consented to invest in information and communication propose an overview of some research projects regarding the technologies so that innovative services can be deployed to concept of contactless ticketing. Then, in section III we give facilitate the operations of daily life for the citizens [1]. a description of the key elements in the environment of Within smart cities, information and communication mobile contactless ticketing while section IV presents the technologies are used to improve the legacy systems in the different models, used to provide the ticketing services, areas of transportation, education, commerce, culture or which we choose to highlight. Finally, in section V we administration while preserving their successful integration delineate some perspectives to understand the possible into the urban environment of the end-users. evolution of mobile contactless ticketing services before The mobile phone has become an ubiquitous tool to concluding. interact with smart cities services, because of its penetration within the population. For example a citizen could use the II. STATE-OF-ART IN CONTACTLESS TICKETING same mobile equipment to pay for transit ticket (for a bus) Ticketing systems aim at proposing solutions with and view the real-time traffic of buses. Thus, smart cities, electronic tickets (e-tickets) and paperless operations. The through mobile services based on new technologies, must use of NFC is one of the most appropriate options to provide provide their citizens with services in the areas of such systems. We present here some projects, in the domains transportation, education, commerce, and culture. In the of transportation and events management, which are domains of transport and culture, a key parameter is the representative of what is done for contactless ticketing. ticketing management system. Indeed, access to means of Copyright (c) IARIA, 2013. ISBN: 978-1-61208-282-0 93 SMART 2013 : The Second International Conference on Smart Systems, Devices and Technologies A. The domain of transportation another NFC-enabled mobile phone by using the NFC peer- Public transport operators are very keen on deploying to-peer mode. contactless e-ticketing systems. For example, the Oyster III. MOBILE CONTACTLESS TICKETING ENVIRONMENT card in London [4] and the Yikatong in Beijing [5] are transportation cards based on the MIFARE technology [6]. Contactless card environment was brought to mass market As another example, in Hong Kong, the Octopus Card [7] is in 1997 when Hong Kong introduced their Octopus card a transport operator card based on the FeliCa technology system. The same contactless smart card standard (ISO/IEC [8]. MIFARE and FeliCa are contactless cards technologies. 14443) has been carried to the mobile contactless world so that NFC devices can interact and communicate with In these systems, the loading of tickets is done either online compatible contactless smart cards and readers. This or via dedicated machines. Then, the users get access to the backward compatibility gives the already existing ecosystem stations just by touching specific readers with their cards. a domain to tap into. Another interesting project is the Virtual Ticketing The card emulation mode of NFC, which offers a support application. Indeed, by taking advantage of the NFC for a secure element, is the one that has been designed to be technology, Ghiron et al. [9] proposed a ticketing used with ticketing. There are several options for the secure application for transport in Rome. In the developed element. The two most prominent are the embedded secure prototype, the virtual tickets are stored in a mobile element option where the secure element is controlled by a equipment which is used to perform the different operations. manufacturer and the UICC (Universal Integrated Circuit The French transportation company Ligne d’Azur in Card) option where the secure element is controlled by a collaboration with the Cityzi project in Nice offers a similar mobile network operator. The strict control of the secure service for buses [10]. With a dedicated mobile application element is essential to ensure the security of the chip, but it loaded on a mobile phone, the users are able to buy tickets prevents an efficient utilization of the chip by 3rd parties. In and validate them by using NFC. section IV we present different ticketing models, some of More generally, Widman et al. discuss in [11] the them require a restricted platform and thus make use of the integration of NFC ticketing systems into existing transport secure element. infrastructure. Such systems can be successfully integrated A Gartner predicts that in 2015 50% of smart phones by considering, among other things, the following points: would be equipped with NFC [15]. This means that mass the distribution of the application, the distribution of the market ticketing schemes can start adopting mobile contactless ticketing but, at the same time, it cannot abandon tickets, the display of the tickets (to inform the user), and the current plastic card infrastructure. SMS-based and web- the procedures of inspection (to check the validity of based ticketing solutions are already so cost-efficient, that presented tickets). The relevance of the scenario is mobile contactless ticketing needs to find its edge demonstrated by applying the concept to the VDV somewhere else. User experience is usually considered to be (Association of German Transport Companies) Core the selling point for contactless services and the ticketing Application. domain should be no different. B. The domain of events management IV. MODELS FOR MOBILE CONTACTLESS TICKETING The events e-ticketing initiatives that rely on the use of Due the complexity of mobile contactless ticketing contactless technologies are very limited. However, these environment, there are many possibilities on how to develop initiatives demonstrate the added value of NFC in ticketing solutions. In this section, we present seven different ways services. An interesting project is the Tapango system [12], that seem most relevant, in the context of smart cities, to implemented by the Artesis’ research lab. It is an electronic manage mobile contactless ticketing systems. voucher system based on e-Wallets with the use of NFC smart cards or NFC-enabled mobile phones. The objective A. Operator-centric model of the system is to reduce the use of paper tickets. With GSMA is the global association of network operators that Tapango, the users first buy tickets via a web interface.