Clermont Ferrand makes the move to open payments on transport

The mid-size university city joins more than 30 agencies in France now accepting contactless EMV payments in a bid to simplify transport ticketing and fare collection.
After the successful deployment of open payments on buses and trams across the T2C network, the city is seeing steady growth in passenger adoption.

Press release, Paris, 16/03/2023: Urban mobility specialist Flowbird today announced that the groundbreaking ‘tap to pay’ open payment system it deployed on the T2C transport network in Clermont Ferrand in September 2022 has already surpassed 100,000 transactions. It’s an impressive milestone for a city with a modest population of 141,000.

“Numbers of passengers using the system is steadily increasing,” said Nicolas Dardonville, Flowbird’s Ticketing Sales Director, “As we’ve seen in Amiens and Monaco, growth in adoption escalates as more passengers experience the ease of using their contactless bank card or smartphone as their ticket. No queuing for tickets and fast boarding are big wins.”

Investment in quality of life

The ticketing and payment solution developed by Flowbird, in partnership with the Syndicat Mixte des Transports en Commun de l’Agglomération Clermontoise (SMTC-AC), has enabled Clermont Ferrand to claim a leading role in the modernisation of transport ticketing in France. Despite its modest size, it joins the ranks of around 30 agencies that have been the first to pioneer open payments on transport.

Mr François Rage, CEO at SMTC-AC, said, “We are very pleased to see that our passengers have taken up this contactless technology. It is part of our goal to make travelling easier so that using our public transport system is even more attractive.”

The open payments system was introduced following investment in ticketing on the T2C network, aimed at creating faster, easier payment experiences. By speeding up boarding and journey times, it is driving Clermont Ferrand’s mission to motivate more people to use public transport instead of private cars.

Integrated smart ticketing and payments

Flowbird is one of the leading technology providers advancing open payments on transport in France and globally. It has nine live deployments to date, in France, Canada, the UK and Australia, including a national roll-out in Northern Ireland. Many more projects are lined up to follow soon.

Well-known for its smart ticketing devices – including bus driver consoles, payment validators and touch screen ticketing kiosks – it is evolving, and earning a strong reputation as a supplier of integrated systems, including powerful back offices and payment services.

Cities can now work with Flowbird to facilitate acceptance of all types of transport payments: open payments (with a bank card or mobile wallet), closed-loop payments (with a stored value transit smartcard), mobile and online payments, and cash. Its cloud-based payment platform is PCI DSS compliant and meets the requirements of card schemes’ rules for transit, providing a secure environment for payment acceptance, processing and collection.

Open payments as a springboard for MaaS

This solid foundation in payments is integral to Flowbird’s ambition to lead the development of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS), interpreted as the integration of multimodal transport, payments and a wider marketplace of services into one single sign-on application.

Nicolas Dardonville said, “Our white-label MaaS app, live in Monaco under the name Monapass, takes the connected city experience to the next level. The principality deployed open payments and our MaaS app simultaneously, to simplify end-to-end journey planning, transport and mobility payments, and ticket booking for local attractions.

“We can imagine a similar app being the natural next step for cities like Clermont Ferrand, where there is a lively program of cultural and sporting events. With one app, one login, tourists can unlock everything that cities have to offer.”