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Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Payment System for Public Transport: the MobiPag STCP Prototype

Authors:
Marta Campos Ferreira
Teresa Galvão Dias
João Falcão e Cunha

Keywords: mobile payments; public transport; mobile ticketing; user experience; field trial

Abstract:
The general adoption of mobile devices and their increasing functionality allow their use to make payments. This wide-spreading reality is being applied to several sectors, including public transport. In fact, there are several advantages of mobile payment and ticketing over traditional systems, such as queue avoidance, ubiquitous and remote access to payment, and the lack of need to carry physical money. This paper presents a prototype of a mobile payment system for public transport using customers’ smartphones with Internet connection. The purchase and validation of tickets is made Over-The-Air (OTA), and location providers are used to locate the traveller and reduce the number of options when it comes to purchasing or validating a ticket. This system was tested in the city of Porto, by real travellers of Sociedade de Transportes Colectivos do Porto (STCP), the main bus transport company, during their normal use of public transport services. The users considered the system extremely useful, since it is more convenient than traditional systems, improving the travelling process and experience. They also felt secure to pay with their mobile phones, and valued the fact they could access information about their journeys, tickets, and account. The ticket validation process revealed to be one of the main challenges that any payment system for public transport should address, as compared to the simplicity of traditional systems.

Pages: 71 to 77

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2014

Publication date: July 20, 2014

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-3468

ISBN: 978-1-61208-366-7

Location: Paris, France

Dates: from July 20, 2014 to July 24, 2014