Progress in digital technologies opens up an array of new opportunities for public transportation worldwide. With improvements in convenience, payment methods, and technologies, public transport such as bus and rail services are slowly becoming as convenient as your own personal mode of transport.
Payments in transport are gradually shifting from cash and closed-loop cards to a more holistic open-loop ticketing experience across all channels. The technological concept behind open-loop allows for the acceptance of any form of payment using fare media through the network of a transit operators or other ticketing service providers. Examples might include QR codes, NFC chips, key fobs, cards, transport virtual cards, smartwatches, and more. The degree of freedom an end-user could enjoy, whether they are a commuter or a business, greatly increases as there is no constraint linked to the use of cash, which remains an unhygienic means of payment in Covid times.
The transportation market contracted between 2020-2021 for obvious reasons and is only now starting to recover.