Germany: use mobile phones to make ... train tickets

Vodafone and the German railroad industry are partnering to bring mobile phones into payment tools.

Instead of buying a ticket, passengers can press the key on the mobile phone, which is located near the 'touch-point' key when boarding and disembarking. Every month, customers will receive a bill for all the trains they have traveled.

Vodafone said the radio chip attached to the 'touch-point' key will transmit / play radio waves to the mobile phone when opening and closing the device (log-in and log-out). Detailed information about the fare will be kept confidential in the phone sim, customers can still check this information even if the phone battery is broken.

Vodafone's technology makes it easier for passengers to ride trains

The Touch & Travel project, which applies this technique to the aviation industry, has been deployed since October 2006, on the Berlin-Hanover (Germany) route and public transport facilities on the outskirts of Berlin.

More and more passengers volunteered to participate in this test project. It is expected that this method will be deployed across the entire railway and metro system in Berlin.

In addition, this technique will be applied to buses. Vodafone said it now plans to adopt the method for the German rail and car rental service.

Speaking at the CeBIT technology fair held in Hannover (Germany), Vodafone spokesman and the German railway industry said: ' We hope the test program will be successful, then the new method will be Apply to the entire transport system, and we can transfer this technology to other companies next year '. German Railway intends to use this technology nationwide after successful testing in the airline industry.

To use this technique, the mobile device must connect to the NFC module (near field communication module) installed in the handheld transceiver device.

Previous international mobile phone companies also plan to use mobile phones as a payment tool. However, these projects were quickly canceled because they thought that the risk level of this project was quite high, as well as the ability to bring low profits. So with this technique, phone companies will become competitors of the credit card industry, because then every month, customers just go to phone companies to pay bills without to credit card.

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