MIT.BUS GmbH, a company of Stadtwerke Gießen, is introducing cashless payment on city buses.
Passengers have been able to purchase cashless tickets on Giessen's city buses since the end of January. All they need to do is hold a card or a smartphone prepared for the payment function in front of the rectangle with the familiar symbol. Of course, Stadtwerke Gießen (SWG) accepts all major cards as well as ApplePay and GooglePay. "More and more people are using cash less and less. So it made sense to introduce this modern form of payment," says Andreas Hergaß, Commercial Director of SWG, explaining the introduction. To achieve this, the company had all 58 vehicles fitted with new ticket printers equipped with the necessary NFC readers.
Advantages for everyone
Thanks to the new technology, all standard tickets - from single journeys to day trips - can be purchased cashless directly on the bus. Of course, it is still possible to pay for your ticket in cash. But from a purely objective point of view, transactions by card or smartphone offer significant advantages. Especially when the process works without entering a PIN, as is the case on Giessen buses. "We made a conscious decision to offer not only a cashless but also a contactless payment method," explains Andreas Hergaß. The latter in particular has two decisive advantages: Firstly, the risk of transmitting pathogens via smear infection is reduced. This is because neither coins nor banknotes are transferred from one hand to the next, nor does anyone have to touch the device itself or the buttons on it. On the other hand, this type of payment speeds up the ticket purchasing process. At an average of eleven seconds, a contactless payment process takes only about half as long as the variants with cash or with a card and PIN. At a supermarket checkout, this only has a noticeable effect when there are long queues. But on a bus, those eleven seconds can already make a difference when two passengers are boarding - between leaving the bus stop on time and getting through the next major junction on green without any problems or standing just a little too long and losing a few more seconds because of the red light. During rush hour, this can quickly add up to minutes, which can sometimes have an impact on timetable reliability. "We expect the new payment alternative to bring a noticeable improvement for passengers and drivers, especially during rush hours," adds Andreas Hergaß.
Municipal partners
SWG needs a partner from the banking sector to handle cashless payment transactions securely. They have found one in Sparkasse Giessen. "We are delighted to be able to support SWG in making local transport a little more attractive," says Ilona Roth, member of the Sparkasse's Management Board, commenting on the cooperation. The financial experts believe that enabling payment via NFC on buses is the order of the day. Since 2013, the number of contactless transactions has increased by an average of 11.6 per cent per year. From 2021 to 2022, around 73,000 new terminals went into operation nationwide, an increase of 7.5 per cent. "A trend that is likely to continue over the next few years and one that we are happy to join," summarises Andreas Hergaß.