Flowbird-Logo-Blue

City of Amiens, FRANCE

AN EFFICIENT AND INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGICAL PARTNERSHIP WITH AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH

17,000 purchases

through the app

16 million

annual trips expected
by 2024

A SUCCESSFUL PROJECT:

One of the most complete and successful systems on the market:

A reference within an ecological project – Tailor-made, robust and scalable products.

An innovative and qualitative approach that respects deadlines and costs.

100% “Made in France”: studies, developments, manufacturing, both for the software and hardware parts, including the banking solution.

An efficient and innovative
technological partnership

with an ecological approach.

Amiens Métropole has become one of the first European cities to launch a public transport network focused on sustainable development.

Flowbird is naturally part of this same logic with equipment that also aims to reduce power consumption, for example with validators with screen savers.

For a long time, the city of Amiens has had strong ambitions in terms of energy transition

In May 2019, Amiens Métropole and Keolis launched the first French electric BHNS (High Service Level Bus) service:

43 buses switched to 100% electric out of the 140 vehicles in the total fleet. Flowbird has been chosen to accompany this innovation. In 2019, Flowbird renewed the entire ticketing system and implemented Open Payment.

THE PROJECT GOALS

  • Encourage people to use public transport
  • Develop a ticketing system with a sustainable approach
  • Implement Open Payment for the first time in France

THE SOLUTION

In June 2019, Flowbird deployed more than 400 validators in 140 vehicles, including 43 electric buses, 40 control laptops and 20 sales/validation laptops

It also equipped the Ametis sales office at Amiens station and 40 retail outlets

Some 50 new ticket dispensers have been installed, which were not previously part of the landscape, as well as bicycle terminals that allow users to park their bicycles safely and travel throughout the network with peace of mind.

All this is without counting the renewal of transport tickets made up of the latest generation cards which include 2 new technological standards: Hoplink/AMC.

Flowbird introduced for the first time in France the Open Payment, which offers users the possibility to take the bus using their contactless bank card.

Flowbird’s R&D teams have therefore developed an add-on module that can be grafted onto existing validators. This added Open Payment reader is then controlled through the central system.

Thanks to this simple technical solution, organising authorities can quickly, easily and safely upgrade their existing ticketing system to Open Payment. The system is open to several types of bank cards: CB, Visa, Mastercard, etc.

BENEFITS FOR RESIDENTS AND VISITORS

Open Payment offers freedom:

  • No more queues to buy a ticket
  • Access to transport is simple, fast and without constraints
  • The Flowbird system automatically adjusts the fare according to consumption, whether by the day or by the month, a first in France 
  • Thanks to the online shop developed by Flowbird, each user can not only buy tickets but also track their journeys and obtain credit card receipts

CONCLUSION

Amiens Métropole and Flowbird have built a high-performance technological partnership that is in line with an ecological approach. The respect of commitments, speed of execution and increasingly innovative equipment have established a customer relationship based on trust.

The customer asked Flowbird to install all these new features over 12 months in order to effectively improve the customer experience. And they kept their promise! Flowbird’s teams are very pleased to have successfully completed the whole implementation in such a short time.

The new ticketing system and the Open Payment system make it possible to offer a better quality of service to users. Since this deployment, Amiens Métropole is proud to note an increase in the number of passengers on its network.