Centro’s European smart ticketing demo

West Midlands transport authority, Centro, has recently given fellow MobiWallet scheme members a demonstration of its journey planner system. The MobiWallet project is a €4m/£2.89m initiative aimed at improving smart ticketing technology, which Centro’s journey planner is part of. The project will be integrated with the Swift smartcard system to improve the current journey planner. As well as Birmingham, the two year MobiWallet scheme is operating in Novi Sad in Serbia, Tuscany in Italy and Santander in Spain and is scheduled to last until July 2016.

Centro Head of Scheme Development, Sandeep Shingadia, said, ‘The system will offer you a range of ticket options as you plan your journey on your smartphone. You will be able to pay for the ticket and then load it on to your Swift card either via an app or a reader. Smart ticketing is moving forward at such a fast pace and it won’t be long before schemes like this will be an everyday occurrence for millions of bus, rail and tram passengers across Europe.’