Changing travel landscape through payment & ticketing innovations

Ticketing Payment Innovation

Public Transport Ticketing System: An Overview 

Ticketing is a tool for implementing a price strategy while keeping operational, commercial, and social goals in mind. The ticketing system converts fares into actual means of payment (for the passenger) and collects fares (for the operator).

Several types of tickets are used in public transportation networks (ticket-based price discrimination). In other words, the price depends on the ticket type used. Ticket-based pricing discrimination is pure price discrimination. It makes little difference to an operator's production costs whether a passenger uses a single ticket, a carnet, or a season ticket to make a trip. Indeed, it costs the same for the operator to transport a student, an older person, or a full-fare client.

Differential pricing for such tickets is a strategy to segment the market and maximise income - referred to as "airline-style pricing." In general, the following types of tickets are used in the public transportation network: Single ticket: one journey (no time limit) -

Single Zonal ticket

-Destination single ticket

• Single ticket: Several journeys within a limited duration / Single-operator ticket / Multi-operator ticket Single-mode

• Multi-mode

• Return ticket

• Multi-journey ticket (5, 10, 20)

• Season ticket (day, week, month, year)

• Value ticket (Pay-as-you-go)

• Off-peak ticket / Night ticket

• Combined ticket (ex: Park & Ride) Group ticket / Family ticket

• Special event ticket Ticketing media include:

• Cash 

• Tokens

• Paper tickets

• Magnetic strip ticket 

• Contact-based smartcards

• Contactless cards 

• Mobile ticketing