The MOBIB Brussels smart ticketing project

STIB, the main public transport operator in Brussels, has been involved with smart-ticketing for years, as a founder of the Calypso secure transactions EC supported project (1994-2002). Since June 2004, the main requirement of the Company Board has been to build a smart-ticketing system that is customer focused. Actually, the project was requested to be a strategic tool for marketing and to position the capital city public transport as a unique mobility partner of all facets of urban life.

So far, MOBIB, the Brussels smart-ticketing system, answers all kinds of possible interoperability scenarios, at national and international level, and is able to cope with a maximum of integration configurations, e.g. with other smart functions required in mobility environments (e.g. services, payment, etc).

The choice of Calypso specifications to install MOBIB was actually largely justified by the ‘non proprietary’ characteristic of this concept. STIB did not want to be kept under control on a long-term basis of any industrial ticketing concept provider. Let’s remind ourselves here that STIB, as a member of the non-profit Calypso Networks Association, is effectively participating in and taking responsibility on the future of Calypso, both in terms of continuity as well as development.

This main reason to adopt Calypso was decided and reinforced by two important basic choices that complete the specificity of the future ‘tailor made’ Brussels ticketing system:

• Avoid R&D but integrate highly innovative and stable technical components and standards
• Operate its own system integration which means no external system definition as e.g. a main contractor or no purchase of a turn key system

The ticketing system resulting from those different assessments is characterised by three main topics, outlined in the following paragraphs.

A multi-application system

This works by respecting the ticketless norms and offering capabilities to host other contact or contactless independent applications. Practically, the card, (based on a ST 19 WR 08 chip) includes a microprocessor (compulsory for the Calypso secure transactions and its proprietary ‘session-ratification’) fitted with a CD21 mask which presents six ‘compartments’, each protected by specific keys:

• The ‘transports contracts’ with a capacity of eight contracts
• The ‘T-purse’, an e-purse limited to public transport purposes (stored value)
• The ’multi-applicative’ compartment, dedicated to any kind of non-transport contracts dealing with city live, both permanent (season tickets for theatre e.g.) or occasional (right to access events)
• The ‘complementary mobility’ compartment, specifically designed to host car or bicycle sharing (to be considered as the necessary extension of public transport contracts)
• The ‘parking’ compartment, designed to cope with car park applications, both for central positioned car pars as well for transit car park facilities along PT lines
• The ‘TRIANGLE’ compartment for long-range interoperability

Above those six compartments, the ID file is openly readable and includes the holder ID according to ISO 7812.2 standard, so that the MOBIB card may be used in any ticketless configuration.

This basic structure does not use the total 8 K capacity of the component, so some 2 K remains available for other (possibly but not mandatory Calypso), applications (access control, student cards e.g.)

All those technical specifications will lead to a completely new commercial strategy

Not only will the personalised cards allow – in the limits of the law on privacy – to switch from the PT user ‘statistic unit’ to a known person that can benefit from loyalty programmes, but some other evolutions looking as revolutions will appear:

• Maximising of the automatic sales channels (vending machines), limiting the external sale agencies to the one geographically necessary and upgraded so to be able to sale practically all the fares structure
• Introduce the automatic monthly banking payments linked with the “green list’ of contracts to be downloaded that will be present in each device facing the card, so including the validators that will be fitted with loading keys. This facility will be used both for contracts or for stored value
• Offering to the ‘flexible customers’ segment facilities for payment and immediate acquiring of the transport contracts by using the T-purse associated to the capability of the validators to sale contracts. This will be performed on a daily ‘customer friendly’ basis that guarantees that the customer will never pay more than a day pass

Furthermore, the obligation of validation, completed by the gates to be installed in the underground stations by late 2009, will introduce a social control in order to limit fraud.

The deployment of the system will now take place from July 2008 to mid 2009, assuming that the transition from the magnetic stripe ticketing system to smart-ticketing will be made step by step, avoiding any ‘big bang’.

Some units of the magnetic stripe devices will be kept in use so that the existing interoperability with the other Belgian operators (the Flemish De Lijn, the Walloon TEC and the federal railways SNCB) will be guaranteed. Indeed, the future will see the four Belgian operators signing a nation wide convention for the adoption of one uniformed ticketing system based on Calypso and on the functional principles of MOBIB. So, one can hope that whole of Belgium will be covered within the next five years by four full compatible systems.

But above this, some other developments are already in consideration. Benefits from the evolution of the EMV world which will provide the PT industry with both off line payment means and with memory space to store and manage PT contracts, are expected to lead to a real operational cooperation between PT and payment. Each of the two industries must base its analysis on the ‘core business’ benefits in this venture. Particularly, offline EMV payments associated with a PT ticketing application would be a great advantage both for local flexible passengers as for long range interoperability.

This also means that the next evolution will be to complete the card issuer position with a more ‘open’ card (or media) accepter role, e.g. cards which are not emitted locally but include possible loading facilities of a local PT contract. TRIANGLE will find here its real dimension.

Other delivering channels

Finally, this will be considered, mainly with the use of contact devices to be associated with home computers that will be largely distributed in Belgium for the electronic signature facility of the national ID chip card. Loading of PT contracts will be possible at home.