Bengaluru Metro adopts NXP’s MIFARE technology

BANGALORE, INDIA: NXP Semiconductors N.V. announced that its MIFARE DESFire platform has been selected to manage the Automated Fare Collection (AFC) of the newly opened metro in the Indian city of Bengaluru, formally known as Bangalore.

The Namma Metro is the third metro to be opened in India after the Kolkata and the Delhi Metros. The aim of the project is to significantly reduce journey time for the city’s residents and visitors, relieve congestion on roads and in the bus network, and reduce the associated levels of pollution.

The first reach of the metro opened in October 2011, and further sections are currently under construction. Once complete, the metro will comprise 41 stations and will be able to carry over one million passengers a day.

Following the success of the Delhi Metro – the first metro worldwide to receive a UN award for reducing congestion and carbon emissions – Namma Metro will be a fully contactless system, offering a number of flexible fare structures including trip tickets and stored value tickets and day tickets.

AS Shankar, BMRCL’s chief engineer (Signalling and Telecommunication), said: “We want to offer our passengers a unique experience and we’re working with our partners to create new services which really add value for our passengers. In this connection, we are working with the State Bank of India to popularize India’s first joint banking debit cum transit card, and with telecom companies to enable giving easy recharging options and also pay-as-you-go services for the travel cards.”

“Namma Metro is a giant step for public transportation systems in India,” said Henri Ardevol, VP and GM, secure transactions, NXP. “With our R&D development center in Bengaluru, we are both supplier and user of this latest, state-of- the-art transport system, and ready to serve the growing transportation needs of this dynamic city.”

This is the third major MIFARE DESFire EV1 transport installation in India. In addition to powering the Delhi Metro, NXP’s technology is being used by India’s Centre for Railway Information Systems, part of the Ministry of Railways, to bring AFC to railways across India. The MIFARE-based AFC will help improve the overall passenger experience while also helping to drive operational efficiencies, enabling convenient and secure recognition of over 18 million passengers every year.

NXP’s MIFARE DESFire technology is an open architecture platform, uniquely built around the needs of public transport ticketing systems. It supports fast transactions, advanced security and privacy features, and the ability to host multiple independent applications. MIFARE DESFire EV1 has been designed for systems integrators looking for leading security features and wanting to combine multiple applications in a single contactless smartcard. This facilitates the integration of services such as banking through MIFARE DESFire EV1 implementation on payment cards.

The product is based on open global standards for both air interfaces and cryptographic methods. In addition to offering data transfer rates of up to 848 kbit/s, MIFARE DESFire utilizes Triple DES, 3K DES and AES hardware cryptographic engines for securing the data on the smartcards and data during transmission.