System Integration of NFC Ticketing into an Existing Public Transport Infrastructure

A key application of Near Field Communication (NFC) can be found in the field of Electronic Fare Management. It can radically change existing systems of isolated applications in public transport by providing new approaches for a national or international inter operable fare management. In this paper a scenario for the integration of an electronic ticketing system into an existing public transport system based on NFC is introduced. The main focus is its realisation in accordance with the VDV Core Application. Electronic fare management systems consist of sophisticated structures and processes. Therefore, at the current stage of development only a selected subset of features which is essential for prototypical implementation is presented in this paper. First, the technology, electronic ticketing and previous field trials in this application area are introduced. Next, a set of relevant use cases is outlined and the existing system architecture is presented as basis for the description of the chosen system integration scenario. Finally the adopted and newly implemented system components and their interfaces are described in detail before concluding with faced challenges and some future prospects.