Applet reader for phone or PDA

Applets are small programs (applications). This section considers applets that reside on, or have been downloaded to, mobile phones and other portable devices (e.g. PDAs). See section machine-readable applets for information about applets and their application in the passenger transport sector.

“Near-Field Communication” (NFC) allows the user device and the transit reader to identify each other and hold two-way communication. As the name suggests, this type of communication requires the devices to be relatively close to each other (within a few centimeters). This is direct device-to-device communication. It does not use the GSM / GPRS facility of the user’s mobile device, and hence is secure, immediate, free, and is not vulnerable to communications service coverage or quality.

On the transit device side, payment with NFC is one of many options. The capability for communication with NFC devices is embedded in the existing ticket machines, card readers or gates / turnstiles. The software in the reader (or its master device) is adapted for the communications, data exchange and security aspects, and also for the validation and/or fare collection functionality with the applet.

At the scale and mode of use of NFC-supported fare payment, it is unlikely that there would be stand-alone NFC readers.  Nonetheless, if/as NFC payments become more established and achieve higher market penetration for transit fare payment, it is then possible that NFC readers will emerge, perhaps as devices that support both NFC-enabled mobile devices and contactless smart cards.

Benefits of applet readers are:

• Enables the acceptance of applets on users’ mobile devices for fare payment and travel authorizations.
• Relatively low cost to enable existing or new ticketing machines, card readers and gates to work with NFC-enabled devices.
• Many smart-phones already contain an embedded NFC chip, which supports communication of encrypted data.

Cautions with regard to applet readers are:

• This remains an innovative and developmental area; there is not yet the depth of practice and problem-solving experience as in other fare collection technologies.
• The designers of the concept in the applet may not have paid sufficient attention to how it should work in practice, either on the technology side between device and reader, or the ergonomics of the transaction. This can leave the reader designer with substantial challenges to design a secure and efficient solution that respects the transit agency’s mode of operation.
• The applet owner is frequently a third party, outside the control of the transit agency. While this may not be a problem at the level of the reader itself (communications and data exchange), there is still a need to ensure that the validation and fare collection software can work with the applet.
• The requirements for back-office authorization, transaction records and clearing need to be factored in to the system design.
• Many NFC-enabled devices work with different communications protocols. This can result in multiple detections of the same NFC device by the reader (finding it on each of the recognized communication protocols), and thus slower communications and transaction processing.