Skip to main content

NFC travel tickets set for rapid growth

A new report from Juniper Research has found that 13 per cent of North American and Western European mobile users will use their NFC-enabled mobile phone as a metro rail or bus ticket by 2016, compared with less than one per cent today.
March 13, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
A new report from 7194 Juniper Research has found that 13 per cent of North American and Western European mobile users will use their NFC-enabled mobile phone as a metro rail or bus ticket by 2016, compared with less than one per cent today. Worldwide, mobile users are now beginning to adopt mobile tickets as an integrated part of their mobile lifestyle, whether for airline, road or rail transport, sporting or entertainment event access.

The report found that, while mobile tickets of all types are growing in popularity, the ability to tap an NFC phone containing a mobile ticket against an entrance gate has tremendous user appeal. For operators, a mobile phone ticket also provides new marketing and sales opportunities previously not available using paper or contactless smartcard tickets.

"NFC mobile ticketing is still in its early stages, but it holds great promise across the entire mobile ticketing market,” said report author David Snow. “Metro ticketing is leading the way as an NFC ticket is a natural evolution from a contactless transport card and can leverage the existing infrastructure.  Add to this the option of simultaneous payment and you have created a compelling user experience.”

Other findings from the report predict that worldwide mobile ticketing transactions are set to quadruple to 23 billion by 2016, while by by 2016, NFC mobile tickets will represent more than 50 per cent of all mobile ticketing revenue.

The Mobile Ticketing whitepaper is available to download from the Juniper website together with further details of the study ‘Mobile Ticketing Evolution: NFC, Forecasts & Markets 2012-2016’.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Strike action prompts commuters to try something different
    June 2, 2014
    David Crawford highlights responses to transit disruption on both sides of the Atlantic. Shortly before workers at San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) began a lengthy round of pay and conditions-related strikes in summer 2013, impacting on the daily lives of 400,000 communities, online ridesharing group Avego publicised a new web address: bartstrike.com. By the start of the following week, Avego was encouraging stranded commuters to download its smartphone app by offering them the chance in a raffle
  • Smart payment ticket for LA commuters
    June 20, 2013
    Xerox’s universal payment system, TAP, now makes it faster and simpler for passengers in Southern California to transfer between passenger trains, buses, subway and light rail. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and Metrolink recently teamed up with Xerox to develop TAP-enabled Metrolink tickets that are compatible with the Metro TAP smart fare payment system.
  • Cubic’s director of mobile shares predictions for 2018
    December 22, 2017
    Robert Spogis, Cubic’s director of mobile shared his 2018 predictions on how the transport sector will be transformed through the adoption of a mobile infrastructure as its popularity grows and how transit apps will leverage AI/machine learning to provide more personalised commuter experiences. In addition, he estimated that mobile technology such as Near Field Communications and Bluetooth will provide simpler and more intuitive ticketing methods than traditional paper tickets.
  • Samba time for Travelier and Moovit in Brazil
    May 9, 2025
    Bus ticket purchases in app now available through domestic brand DeÔnibus