Athens enables contactless transit payments at metropolitan scale

Working with Littlepay, OASA enabled open-loop payments without wholesale replacement of the existing validator estate and fare infrastructure. Tap2Ride was deployed quickly and cost-effectively, minimizing implementation risk and disruption while simplifying passenger access and journeys. 

20.1 million	320%	2 acquirers	~8,000	10 weeks
cEMV transactions in 12 months to Aug 26	YOY transaction growth as of Aug 26	Multi-acquirer architecture	Validators and gates were cEMV enabled	From kick-off until pilot launch

About OASA

Athens Urban Transport Organisation (OASA) is the public transport authority responsible for coordinating an integrated network of buses, trolleybuses, Metro and tram services across metropolitan Athens.

It serves a region with around 3.8 million residents, which attracts around 8 million international visitors annually. The network records more than 450 million annual boardings across road and rail services.

The context

OASA set out to launch Tap2Ride with three core ambitions: to modernise fare payments, improve the experience of residents, commuters and visitors using its network, and reduce the operational costs of its card based system.

By enabling passengers to travel using a contactless bank card or device they already carry, OASA aimed to remove the need to queue for tickets or understand the local fare system and reduce the operational costs of the card-based system, making public transport simpler to access.

The challenge

The authority wanted to avoid the considerable cost, disruption and roll-out time of replacing its estate of ~8,000 legacy validators and gates. The core technical challenge was to enable cEMV acceptance across a complex, multimodal network, while continuing to support the existing ATH.ENA closed-loop ticketing system and fare products.

The solution needed to integrate with the existing fare-management platform, provided by LG CNS, which would retain responsibility for fare calculation, aggregation and fare adjustments. The challenge for Littlepay was to introduce open-loop payment processing into this complex, live transport environment while making the underlying technical complexity largely invisible to passengers.

The solution

Littlepay worked with LG CNS to integrate open-loop payments with OASA’s existing fare collection environment. LG retained responsibility for fare calculation, aggregation and fare adjustments. Existing validators and gates were enabled for cEMV acceptance using Planeta Informatica technology, with Cybersource providing the payment gateway. 

Littlepay provided the specialist transit payments platform, including debt and deny-list management, and developed switching capability to route transactions between OASA’s two acquiring partners, National Bank of Greece (NBG) and Nexi. Together, the partners delivered an integrated solution built around OASA’s existing infrastructure.

Customer feedback

“Tap2Ride represents a major step in OASA’s digital modernisation and our commitment to improving the passenger experience. Working with Littlepay and our technology partners, we integrated contactless payments with our existing fare collection environment, giving passengers a simpler and faster way to travel using the card or device they already carry.” Maria Mavroudi, Athens Fare Collection System Project Manager, OASA.

Next steps

OASA is looking at the next steps in its partnership with Littlepay, focused on continuity, resilience and ongoing evolution of the fare system. The modular, open architecture of Littlepay’s platform provides flexibility for future payment and passenger-service enhancements.