The classic paper ticket is increasingly being replaced by chip cards or mobile phone tickets. With digital user media, passengers no longer need change for the ticket machine and don't have to think about which ticket they need. They are also more efficient for transport companies because they are easier and quicker to check. But what is actually covered by digital user media?
Chip card is the most common user medium
So far, user media have mainly been chip cards. As of February 2022, more than 15.5 million chip cards are in circulation in German public transport. This means that more than 15.5 million people have a job ticket, a monthly pass, an annual season ticket or a school or semester ticket in the form of a plastic card with a chip. In European public transport, by the way, these cards are called smart cards.
For us, however, it doesn't matter what the user medium consists of: smartphone, chip card, wearables - anything with a chip, NFC or an antenna can be an (((eTicket. Watches, key rings or wristbands, for example, are conceivable. Student tickets have already been attached to cuddly toys abroad and there were also experiments with NFC-enabled stickers for artificial acrylic fingernails in 2016.
Chip card vs. smartphone: a comparison of user media
(((eTicket Germany works on chip cards as well as on smartphones. Both user media have advantages and disadvantages for passengers. Find out what they are here in the video.
Smartphones for occasional passengers, chip cards for season tickets?
In January 2019, transport companies and transport associations in North Rhine-Westphalia joined forces with us to analyse the potential uses of various user media in NRW in the future.
Together with the Digitalisation Competence Centre and the University of Wuppertal, we wanted to find out what possible applications there are for user media in public transport - and what the future holds.
The result: the smartphone is particularly flexible and easy to use. With the introduction of check-in/check-out processes, it will become even more established as a user medium than before. Nevertheless, we assume that the chip card will continue to exist. This applies to passengers who use public transport regularly and use season tickets such as monthly and annual tickets or have subscriptions such as the NRW-Ticket.
Download user media analysis