Finnish cities roll out open loop contactless fare payments

Helsinki Regional Transport contactless payment instructions illustration
OPEN LOOP: Helsinki and Tampere are rolling out contactless ticketing on ferries, trams and buses

Passengers using selected ferries and trams in the Finnish capital of Helsinki and buses in the city of Tampere can now make EMV contactless fare payments using an open loop ticketing platform being rolled out by Helsinki Regional Transport and Tampere’s Nysse regional transit authority.

The system in Tampere incorporates a zonal, time-based fare-capping service that allows bus passengers to “travel across as many zones as needed within the travel window and trust they will be charged the best fare for the journey taken”, says payment service provider Littlepay.

The rollout in Helsinki also sees the launch of an inspection app that enables on- and off-vehicle ticket checking on any NFC-enabled Android device and “removes the need for expensive, PCI-compliant hardware to check a contactless payment method’s validity for travel”.

“This is the first phase of the project, which will continue with multi-modal rollouts across the cities’ transit systems,” Littlepay adds.

Helsinki Regional Transport first announced it was planning to roll out contactless fare payments in March 2020.

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