GMV supplies Mallorca Transport with a new EMV-technology ticketing system

The technology multinational GMV has won the tender for the supply of technological components for the new STI-R4 fare system of the Mallorca Transport Consortium (Consorcio de Transportes de Mallorca), which takes in the collective public transport of (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera and allows across-the-board fare management of all the islands’ collective means of transport (bus, train and metro).

The beneficiaries of this new system will be the Balearic Islands’ various transport authorities, such as the Consorcio de Transportes de Mallorca (CTM), the Empresa Municipal de Transportes de Palma (EMT Palma), the Consell Insular de Menorca (CIME), the Consell Insular de Ibiza, the Consell Insular de Formentera (CIF), the Palma Metro and Mallorca’s railway network called Servicios Ferroviarios de Mallorca (SFM).

Under this new benchmark ITS contract in Spain GMV will be rolling out the new integrated, multimodal fare system in the public transport network of the Balearic Islands, after which it will supply technical assistance for the first three years of operation. The technological equipment to be supplied for this purpose is a blend of two technologies: contactless bankcard payment and smartcards (habitually used public-transport contactless cards), including the EMV payment service in collaboration with Redsýs and Banco Santander and incorporating all the advantages of an account based ticketing (ABT) system in the cloud.

GMV will be fitting in the buses a total of 1652 validators and 611 dual EMV/Smartcard desks, 1247 video-surveillance cameras plus 611 inside information panels. GMV will also see to the adaptation in metro and train stations of 238 ticket barriers and 62 Ticket Vending Machines to allow the system to work with EMV technology.

GMV will also be incorporating into this system its groundbreaking Deepsy^® platform, which will enable the Consorcio de Transportas de Mallorca to develop its own onboard ticketing software regardless of the equipment hardware configuration. Nonetheless, in the particular case of the buses of the Municipal Transport Company (Empresa Municipal de Transportes) of Palma de Mallorca, GMV will be developing the entire onboard ticketing software.

For the management of bankcard payment GMV will be supplying an end-to-end payment solution that adapts EMV technology to the new integrated fare system. Thanks to an agreement reached with Redsýs, as supplier of the payment platform, and Banco Santander, as service procurer, GMV will make it possible to blend in a single system the traditional smartcard-based payment system (farecards) with the new EMV contactless bankcard payment system.

The incorporation of the EMV payment standard will allow any would-be passenger with a physical or cellphone-virtual bankcard to access the public transport system directly without any need for previous registration or ticket purchase and in the certainty that a post-payment system will guarantee him or her the most favorable fare in accordance with the actual use made of the public-transport system. The new system will also harden security in card-terminal transactions, since the EMV card validates transactions on the basis of the information stored in its chip.

In the words of Antonio Hernández, Business Development Director of Intelligent Transportation Systems “The incorporation of EMV technology together with the Consorcio de Transportes de Mallorca’s unflinching determination to set up a cutting-edge system make this a pioneering project in Spain; it also stands as a benchmark in Europe for any upcoming public-transport ticketing systems”.