Travel sales and payment
Description/Objective
Travel sales and payment cover the processes of selling travel authorisations and receiving the corresponding payments. This section focuses on the ITS-supported applications and services, and does not aim to cover the very extensive non-ITS fare collection domain.
The travel sales application needs to support the following functions:
- Information about the range of travel products and their prices
- Procurement, initialisation and distribution of ticketing media and other non-ticket travel authorisations
- Management of the sales process
- Management of online processes
- Management of electronic and physical security processes
- Generation and transfer of fare product and/or travel authorisation data for recording on the ticketing medium or authorisation
- Collection of information relating to all transactions
- Collection of electronic funds for online sales
- Collection of electronic funds (credit, debit cards) for direct sales
- Collection of cash from customers
- Management of cash logistics, including fareboxes and safes
Travel sales for urban transit are conducted through the following channels:
- Direct sales on the vehicle
- Direct sales at the bus stop or bus station
- Direct sales from authorised ticket agents
- Sales from self-service/vending machines
- Online sales
All of the above channels can sell electronic fare products, although in-vehicle sales are usually restricted to occasional and low-value tickets, and the (re)loading of value to ticketing media already held by the passenger. Similarly, in-vehicle payment channels generally avoid cash or credit/debit card transactions that require on-the-spot authorisation.
Technologies, data and resources
The following technologies are used for travel sales and payments:
- In-vehicle ticket issuing and value-loading machines
- In-vehicle vending and loading machines
- Self-service/vending machines at stops, stations and other transit-related locations
- Office vending and reloading machines, for use both at ticket offices and at authorised ticket agents
- On-line payment channels
- Dedicated ticketing media, including smart cards and magnetic stripe tickets
- Non-ticket travel authorisations stored on generic media (e.g. on mobile phones, PDAs)
- Security key and algorithms
- Secure Application Modules (SAMs)
- Fareboxes
- Cash counting machines
- Data bases and associated servers
- Communications channels for data transfer
The principal data requirements for Travel Sales and Payment applications are:
- Reference data for all fare products, including pricing
- Customer data base
- Machine and vendor databases
- Security authorisations
- Sales transaction data
Advantages and Cautions
The primary advantages of ITS-supported Travel Sales and Payment applications are to:
- minimise cash handling on or near the vehicle, allowing faster boarding times and increased throughput
- minimise cash within the system, with security benefits
- increase the number and range of channels for ticket sales, and harnesses internet-based and other e-sales opportunities
- improve image of transit
The principal cautions in relation to Travel Sales and Payment applications are:
- substantial organisational capacity of high integrity
- need for a high degree of technical capacity and support
- need for expert security against both opportunistic and/or organised fraud
- need for extensive database organisation and management, and associated data protection
- need to facilitate fare payment by all classes of travellers, including those not able to afford pre-loaded fare cards
Relevant Case Studies
Dublin, Zurich
Johannesburg, Karnataka State (please see Fare Collection Toolkit)