Integrated urban e-ticketing for public transport and touristic sites : final report on application concepts and the role of involved stakeholders

This final report deals with the development of integrated e-ticketing systems for public transport and touristic sites in cities. The idea of integrated e-ticketing is to combine several modes of transport (e.g. tram, bus, car-, and bike-sharing) on a single ticket. Modern multi-application smart cards are able to incorporate additional fields of application (e.g. leisure activities or tourist attractions) on one fare medium. Such systems aim at facilitating the combination of modes and transferring between them by making the ticketing system as easy and attractive as possible. For over a decade, integrated ticketing has been on the agenda of EU transport policy. While technologies are already available and ready to meet multi-function requirements, e-ticketing has not yet been implemented on a wider scale in Europe. The implementation of an integrated e-ticketing system is a complex process that requires the synchronised activity of heterogeneous actors. Public transport operators and authorities, financial service providers, telecommunications operators, and the tourism sector need to work together to combine their products on a single card. Besides technological characteristics, legal and economic aspects play a decisive role. Stakeholders that are involved in the implementation of an integrated ticketing system need to agree on technical specifications as well as on institutional and governance issues. For this report, relevant studies, reports and surveys have been reviewed in order to provide an overview on technical and non-technical aspects on the e-ticketing environment. Such an integrated perspective is needed to understand and govern successful pathways towards integrated e-ticketing schemes. This report focuses on the interrelations between different stakeholders; on the factors that might influence their decision making to engage in the implementation process and it explains the role of each actor in the systems architecture. A particular focus lies on potential and existing end-users. It will be highlighted that end-users are not a homogenous social category, but that they desire different products, predominantly based on their travel purposes.