Visa Eyes Transit Operators With New Business Unit

In an effort to get more travelers to use a debit, credit or prepaid card when commuting, Visa announced news of the launch of its Visa Global Transit Solutions on Monday (Nov. 13).

In a press release, Visa said the new program is targeted at mass transit operators as well as technology providers with the goal of adding contactless payments as a fare option at the gate. The solution, which includes the Visa Global Transit consulting team based out of London, includes dedicated regional specialists around the world who are charged with supporting contactless payments implementations. The group will provide guidance as well as hands-on assistance, Visa said in the press release.

The program also offers the Mass Transit Transaction model created by Visa that has a back-office framework to manage contactless payments regardless of the size of the transit operations or the fare structure. With the Visa framework, operators are able to offer a range of types of fares, including fixed fares, distance and time-based fares and multimodal fares.

Visa is also offering tools and standards under its new Visa Global Transit Solutions business. The company is expanding the Visa Ready program to include payment technologies that are available to mass transit operators so they can be Visa Ready certified. As initial Visa Ready for Transit program participants, Worldline and Vix Technology will help to provide new open-loop contactless solutions to transit operators around the world.

“Visa is the best way to pay and be paid everywhere and on any device. We want to make the transportation experience faster, easier and more secure, whether someone is traveling by car, flying on holiday or taking public transportation to work,” said Michael Lemberger, head of products at Visa in Europe. “Visa played an important role in partnering with Transport for London (TfL). We are applying the expertise which has led to more than 1 billion Visa contactless journeys on TfL to help mass transit operators around the world move away from cash and [paper] tickets to contactless payments on buses and trains.”

The Visa team plans to connect with transit operators, technology enablers, FinTech companies and others to look at all aspects of commuting and engage in the co-creation of new experiences.

Visa pointed to its recent Cashless Cities report that shows digital payments have the potential to significantly decrease costs associated with transit and toll systems maintained by municipal governments. The study found that transit agencies spend an average of 14.5 cents of every physical dollar collected, compared to only 4.2 cents for every digital dollar.