Visa has launched its Global Transit Solutions initiative, a new program designed to accelerate the global use of debit, credit and pre-paid accounts.
Officials said as part of the new endeavor, the Ready for Transit project would accelerate seamless, friction-free commuting with contactless payments.
“Visa is the best way to pay and be paid everywhere and on any device,” Michael Lemberger, head of products at Visa in Europe, said. “We want to make the transportation experience faster, easier and more secure, whether someone is traveling by car, flying on holiday or taking public transportation to work. Visa played an important role in partnering with Transport for London (TfL). We are applying the expertise which has led to more than one billion Visa contactless journeys on TfL to help mass transit operators around the world move away from cash and tickets to contactless payments on buses and trains.”
The new Visa transit program helps mass transit operators and technology providers of any size add contactless as a fare option at the gate, officials said, using consulting, frameworks, tools and standards to arrive at solutions.
“We work hard to make public transport in London easy for everyone and developing contactless ticketing has been a huge part of this,” Shashi Verma, chief technology officer at TfL, said. “More than 40 percent of pay-as-you-go journeys are now made using contactless cards or mobile devices and we have already seen cards from more than 100 countries around the world using our system. Without our close partnership, we would not have seen the huge benefits to customers that contactless ticketing has already delivered in London.”