An Initial Approach for a NFC M-Ticketing Urban Transport System

Cosmina Ivan^*, Roxana Balag

Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Automation and Computer Science, Technical University of ClujNapoca, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

DOI: 10.4236/jcc.2015.36006                

Abstract

Public transport plays an important role in the daily lives of hundreds of millions of people. The limited national and local finances starve the public transport networks of funding, although greater usage would imply important environmental and financial benefits. The recent advances in mobile technologies and services could be harnessed to increase the attractiveness and efficiency of various public transport systems. Increasingly flexible electronic ticketing, smart cards and real-time information feeds via smartphones are making transportation networks faster, cheaper and more efficient for both the passengers and operators. In this paper, we present our approach in designing and implementing an M-ticketing system for urban transport based on NFC technology. We make initial design decisions based on a study of two similar systems Oyster and U-Go. We make use of Microsoft technologies for the prototype implementation and we propose a test suite to validate the system. We conclude on presenting the experience gained from this project and propose a set of further developments in order for the prototype to become more realistic.

Keywords

M-Ticketing, NFC (Near Field Communication), Urban Transport

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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