Kuba and Littlepay partner to provide a modular ticketing solution

Littlepay, in partnership with Kuba, is proud to announce the launch of a contactless open loop fare collection system in the city of Besançon, across the Ginko network of over two hundred buses and trams. This is the first deployment of Littlepay’s contactless EMV payment technology in France.

The system is being launched by the City of Besançon, in partnership with Keolis Besançon, Kuba, La Banque Postale and Littlepay. It provides a frictionless, tap-to-ride experience, where passengers tap a contactless payment method onto a Kuba (Vix CP6500) payment reader as they board.

Littlepay’s payments platform receives tap data from the KubaPay solution and processes payments, using La Banque Postale for acquiring services. Payments can be made using a Visa, Mastercard or co-branded Carte Bancaires credit or debit card, or a contactless-enabled mobile wallet.

Simpler and faster fare payments

The solution makes fare payments simpler and boarding faster for Besançon’s public transport users, who make up to 30 million trips each year. The City sees this modernisation of ticketing as a vital part of improving passenger experience, so that more people will be encouraged to make sustainable travel choices.

This is the first phase of a rollout of contactless open loop fare collection in Besançon, and a second phase is planned on suburban lines in September 2022.

It’s been great to work with the City of Besançon and our partners, introducing a tap-to-ride system. We’re confident this will significantly improve the experience of using public transport and motivate more people to leave their cars at home.

Paul Griffin, Global Head of Commercial, Littlepay

Entering a new regional market

In preparation for this project, Littlepay integrated with La Banque Postale as the acquirer, and added French language localisation to its platform. Littlepay provides modular payments infrastructure specialised for transit payments and works with a range of integrated partners to deliver end-to-end processing. The connection to La Banque Postale allows acquiring reach in France and will provide access to the Carte Bancaires card scheme.

Littlepay’s certification to process Carte Bancaires card payments is an important step that will be instrumental to further projects in the region later this year. As France’s local card scheme, it is the most widely used payment method, with over 70 million cards issued, and offers lower processing costs to merchants.

In addition to open loop payment processing, Littlepay’s Inspect APIs were used by Ginko and Kuba to develop an Inspection app to minimise fare evasion on the deployment. This is installed on NFC compatible, Android mobile devices to enable staff to carry out fare inspections, checking cards against a list of known taps.

Littlepay has an existing relationship with ticketing technology specialist Kuba, having collaborated on providing technology for two contactless open loop payments demonstrations in Santa Barbara, which are part of the California Integrated Travel Project (Cal-ITP https://www.calitp.org).