Mexico City, Abu Dhabi seek contact-free public transit

Mexico City, Abu Dhabi and Casablanca are among the latest cities to sign up for "contact-less" ticketing for their public transit systems.

All three cities have signed deals with ACS to implement its Atlas ticketing system, which allows straphangers to pay fares by waving a reloadable debit card at the turnstile.

The primary goal? Ease congestion. All three cities expect congestion to only worsen; Abu Dhabi alone expects to see a five-fold increase in transit use in the next 20 years.

The solution, at least for now: technology.

Abu Dhabi will boost its bus fleet from 520 to 1,365 in the next two years; Casablanca will install 200 automatic ticket vending machines and 560 access control gates across 47 tramway stations; Mexico City will implement the first on-board fare collection system for any of its bus lines on Metrobus' Line 4.

Management, training, integration, ticket processing and payment reconciliation will all be handled by ACS, which installed similar systems in New Jersey and Houston.

Photo: Abu Dhabi. (Jon Rawlinson/Flickr)

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com