OSPT Alliance debuts with open security standard to foster next-gen transit fare collection

CARTES & IDENTIFICATION 2010, PARIS, FRANCE: Founded by four leading technology companies, the Open Standard for Public Transport (OSPT) Alliance made its debut today and introduced an open security standard to foster the next generation of more secure, cost-effective, scalable and extensible transit fare collection systems.

Now open to new members, the alliance will work to establish an ecosystem of transit operators, technology suppliers, consultants and integrators, government agencies, and mobile ecosystem product and service providers, as well as other industry associations, to develop new, interoperable transit fare collection solutions based on open-standard security both for current and future fare collection systems.

The Alliance also announced today that Beijing-based Watchdata Technologies Ltd., a developer of data security and smart card technology, and the Open Ticketing Institute of the Netherlands have joined the original four founding members - Giesecke & Devrient GmbH (G&D), Infineon Technologies AG, INSIDE Secure S.A. and Oberthur Technologies S.A.- and will participate in the alliance's activities and ecosystem.

Additionally, OSPT announced it is in contact with Calypso Networks Association (CNA) in order to create a common working group.

The OSPT Alliance ecosystem will be a key component for advancing the open security standard for transit fare collection, known as Cipurse(tm). The ecosystem will offer transit operators the opportunity to choose from among a number of vendors, consultants and integrators to help them deploy or upgrade to a more secure and cost-effective transit fare collection system.

Likewise, it will provide mobile device manufacturers with next-generation open standard solutions. Government agencies that need to evaluate bids for new or upgraded transit payment systems will have access to a much broader array of solution vendors and partners delivering a wider range of innovative, flexible and secure transit fare collection solutions.

The OSPT Alliance ecosystem will benefit transit system consultants and integrators by bringing together a greater assortment of vendors offering more product choices and richer capabilities than available with proprietary systems. For mobile device manufacturers, the open security standard will be the next 'must-have' checklist item they include in all next-generation NFC implementations.

"We are always keeping abreast of the latest security standards for our fare collection system, and have adopted open standards for all of our transit applications, including the Contactless e-Purse Application 2009. Now, we are looking to future-proof our fare collection infrastructure by ensuring it is interoperable with NFC mobile devices as they start to be deployed commercially," said Silvester Prakasam, director of the fare system at Land Transport Authority (LTA) in Singapore.

"Cipurse is an important step towards establishing standardized, secure and interoperable fare collection for all public transport schemes, and we plan to adopt it for future releases of CEPAS."

The OSPT Alliance currently is developing the initial version of the open security standard, as well as documentation and reference implementations, which will enable technology suppliers to develop and deliver innovative, more secure and interoperable transit fare collection solutions for cards, stickers, fobs, mobile phones and other consumer devices, as well as infrastructure components.

Unlike systems based on proprietary technologies that limit choices, are potentially less secure and cost more to acquire, deploy and maintain, products that conform to this standard will include the most advanced security technologies, help ensure compatibility with legacy systems, and be available in a variety of form factors.