AFIMB (French agency for multimodal information and fare management system services), an agency within the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Transport, has just published on its website the version 1.0 of the implementation specifications that set out the requirements related to the use of contactless communication protocol ISO/IEC 14443 to ensure interoperability between fare management system hardware and the multiple-form-factor contactless fare media (smartcards, e-tickets, mobile phones, USB keys, tablets, etc.).

“During discussions held in 2011 within the agency’s fare management systems committee, public transport authorities had shared their expectations regarding these implementation specifications: they should guarantee that by upgrading their fare management system terminals according to these implementation specifications, communication with new NFC fare media like mobile handsets will be ensured” reports Bernard Schwob, Director of the agency.

The requirements of these implementation specifications are related to the analog protocol layer of the ISO/IEC 14443 standard. Application-to-application exchanges executed once contactless communication has been established at RF level fall outside the scope of these implementation specifications. This makes it applicable to any fare management system, regardless of the ticketing application used.

These specifications are the output of a multidisciplinary working group led by Nextendis and DP Consulting, and aim for being adopted as a European transport ticketing standard.
This work has been accomplished by a technical taskforce composed of experts representing the key players in the public transport sector, including industry leaders, fare management systems integrators, transport operators, test labs, and public transport authorities. The technical taskforce has been led by Nextendis and DP Consulting. AFSCM (Association for Mobile Contactless in France) has also participated to the project.
In France, these implementation specifications will be published in tandem with the rollout of a validation process for all contactless fare management system terminals and fare media liable to host a transport ticketing application.
Following the path set by the payments industry, which has set-up the EMVCo Level 1 certification, and the NFC device manufacturers, which have recently published analog and digital specifications, the French and European transport industry aims for building a common standard that will deliver the following advantages: 

• Improve contactless communication interoperability between fare media and contactless readers, regardless of the ticketing application (Calypso, Mifare Desfire, VDV-KA, ITSO, …) used by each network,
• Facilitate the software and hardware migration roadmap for existing fare management system terminals and minimize migration costs by setting a single per-terminal/per-fare media validation system, designed to replace the multiple cross tests in use today,
• Make it possible for the networks to require a complementary EMVCo L1 certification for fare management system terminals designed to accept contactless payment as the transport network fare payment and access system.

The implementation specifications will be integrated in AFSCM’s Cityzi mobile handset requirements. These implementation specifications aim for being adopted as a European transport standard by the fare management system players.
Version 1.0 of the implementation specifications can be downloaded from the AFIMB website: click here.