Germany gets ready for automatic fare collection

SINGAPORE: NXP Semiconductors N.V. announced at the IT-Trans show that the implementation of Germany’s nationwide ticketing standard, known as VDV Kernapplikation (VDV-KA), has reached an important milestone. The cities of Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg have entered the next stage of the e-Ticket Deutschland program, and are now rolling out modern electronic ticketing.

Cardag Deutschland GmbH, a provider of high quality smart card solutions, selected NXP’s SmartMX family of secure microcontrollers to power the smart cards for the VDV-KA project. Since the start of the eTicket Deutschland program, Cardag has supplied more than five million contactless cards based on NXP’s SmartMX technology.

The public transport operators involved have already benefited from the VDV-KA implementation on NXP’s SmartMX platform, collecting a yearly amount of more than one billion Euro turnover in fares. This clearly demonstrates the need to select a proven, secure and reliable technology for public transport networks.

More and more authorities acknowledge the advantages of electronic ticketing and are trying to create national standards to facilitate the use of one smart card issued by one local transit agency in other cities as well.

”The VDV-KA is one of the most complex ticketing specifications worldwide, having been developed to define an interface standard that guarantees interoperability across all German transit agencies,” says Dipl.-Ing. Elke Fischer, head of Application Management and Certification, VDV.

“In Germany, the transit market is highly fragmented. NXP helped us to develop a dedicated, flexible and scalable ticketing solution with state-of-the-art security. With this solution, public transport operators will be able to improve the efficiency of their systems and to offer a convenient and user-friendly solution to their customers.”

“Delivering complete end-to-end system solutions for ticketing applications, including reader infrastructure, to more than 650 cities globally has enabled NXP to develop a deep core competence in technology platforms required for today’s and tomorrow’s mobility challenges. Our unparalleled domain expertise was crucial in optimizing SmartMX for the German transit market based on our experience and successes in other public transport projects such as London, New Delhi, Beijing, Taipei, Bangkok, Oslo, Madrid, Miami and San Francisco,” says Henri Ardevol, VP and GM, Secure Transactions, NXP Semiconductors.

NXP’s SmartMX platform is a true multi-application platform mainly used for payment and e-Government applications. This flexibility opens doors to embrace additional markets such as the e-Ticket Deutschland program, adding more convenience and security to its end users. One of the next steps could be to combine transport ticketing with other applications such as student campus cards.

Thanks to the implementation of NXP’s popular MIFARE technology in its SmartMX secure microcontroller family, there are great opportunities to leverage existing contactless infrastructure for multi-applications. Additionally, NXP’s SmartMX technology is widely adopted in NFC-enabled mobile phones, which corresponds with VDV’s plans to use smart phones as a new innovative form factor in public transport.

Matthias Wiarda, HVV, Hamburger Verkehrsverbund GmbH, says: “The e-Ticket Deutschland program will contribute to the development of a modern, efficient ticketing scheme and will be an essential component of having a transport system optimised to meet the travel needs of our customers. The passengers will be able to use the issued smart cards on rapid transit and regional rail as well as on buses and ferries in the HVV area.”