Germany’s National Railway to Roll Out NFC ‘Touchpoints’

Riding the train just got easier… if you have an NFC enabled phone that is.

By: Dan Balaban

German national railway, Deutsche Bahn, plans to roll out its NFC-based ticketing service, Touch&Travel, to its long-distance stations throughout Germany this year, a spokesman confirmed to NFC Times.

The spokesman said the railway would expand the NFC “touchpoints” to 320 long-distance stations in November. With the service, preregistered users can ride trains and pay their fares at the end of the month. To travel, they touch NFC tags with their phones to check in before boarding and check out at their departure stations. The phone reads an ID number encoded on each NFC tag that identifies the station. The phone then transmits this information over the mobile network to back-end servers. The railway calculates the fares and sends a monthly invoice. It is paid mainly by direct debit from the users’ bank accounts.

“That’s the main advantage, you don’t have to care about any information, (such as) ‘what kind of ticket do I need for any of my travel?’ ” a Deutsche Bahn spokesman told NFC Times. “Just check in and just check out. All the things are billed after my trip.”

Continues at: Germany’s National Railway to Roll Out NFC ‘Touchpoints’ | NFC Times New – Near Field Communication and all contactless technology..