Is NFC a panacea for net zero target?
The other day I was waiting for a bus to drop my kids at school in Cambridge, UK. On that day, there was a 10–15 passengers who wanted to board the bus. Some of the passengers already had their tickets on on their mobile app or in a printed paper. As these passengers boarded the bus, the driver visually inspected their tickets. The other passengers bought the tickets using contactless cards or cash. The ticket machine printed a paper ticket for these passengers for this and later bus trips. Overall this boarding process took ~5 minutes and I reached my destination later than planned.
Important factors for bus passengers
Passengers value convenience, environment, and ease to use in bus service. The bus operator will acquire and retain passengers if its bus service scores high in these quality attributes.
UK bus strategy
As a part of decarbonizing its economy, the UK government has unveiled a £3 billion pound national bus strategy to get people back on the bus. This strategy seeks to make the bus service more reliable and affordable. It entails creating hundred of miles of new dedicated bus lanes, introducing 4,000 British-made low emission buses, centralized route planning, and putting a daily cap on the bus fares.
Contactless payments in UK buses
A typical bus operator in Cambridge accepts contactless payments using credit/debit cards. A passenger can also install a digital wallet on its smartphone/wearable for contactless payments using NFC (Near Field Communication).
NFC is a standard short-range (within 4 cm), low bandwidth (max data rate 424 Kbit/s) wireless technology that permits two devices to exchange information.
However not all UK bus operators support contactless payments. A component of UK bus strategy is to enable contactless payment on all buses by 2022.
NFC can also perform ticket validation
Typically a bus driver manually verifies the ticket by visual inspection. An alternative is to install NFC readers in the bus and use NFC-enabled phones to perform automatic ticket validation. The customer installs a virtual wallet on its smartphone to download and store purchased tickets. This automated verification reduces the boarding time and improves the passenger experience.
Incentivizing people to switch to buses
The UK bus strategy is vital to post COVID economic recovery. Using NFC technology on public transport will certainly enhance passenger experience. A better customer experience will attract new passengers to bus service and retain existing ones. Therefore NFC can reduce car trips and do its bit in reducing carbon emissions.