Smart Ticketing Market - Growth, Trends, Forecasts (2020 - 2025)

The global smart ticketing market was valued at USD 11.12 billion in 2019, and it is expected to reach USD 22.72 billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 12.9%, during the period of 2019-2025. Smart ticket, as a substitute to the traditional paper-based ticketing, gained traction in recent times, owing to the emphasis on the digitization of ticketing processes. Smart tickets can save a passenger’s time, by eliminating the need to wait in line to buy a ticket. Covering both smartcards and apps on mobile phones, the technology evolved significantly and emerged as a better alternative to paper tickets.

- Widely used across different forms of transportation, the use cases are increasing across sports and entertainment events. One such example of a use case is the city of Rio de Janeiro, which hosted the Olympic Games and anticipated 500,000 foreign visitors. The public transport ticketing displayed the contactless technology of Gemalto. The company supplied its waterproof ‘Celego Contactless Wristband’ and its ‘Celego Contactless Sticker’, embedded with a contactless chip from Gemalto and certified by Visa and MasterCard. Activated with a wave of the wristband near the contactless readers, the solution was one of the major innovations introduced in the region to improve the infrastructure.
- Regional governments are even reaching new milestones in terms of the usage of smart tickets. For instance, according to the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), a British rail industry membership body, more train journeys were made with smart tickets, with the number reaching 65 million. Compared to a four-week period from August to September 2019, with the same period in 2018, about 8.4 million more journeys were made with a smart ticket. The RDG data also reveals that passengers chose smart tickets for 50% of all journeys, which significantly increased from 37% a year ago.
- The trend on mobile ticketing is also becoming popular among several sports and entertainment events. For instance, in Europe, several major American Football stadiums and associated sports teams implemented mobile ticketing, and with fans entering stadiums via mobile access provisions, this trend is expected to gain traction in Europe. Such increasing interest may challenge the growth of smartcards over the forecast period.
- Rambus, a prominent company in the market, predicts that mobile may become a critical factor for the future of public transport. Furthermore, utilizing smart and mobile ticketing may not only help support a better transport experience, it may also improve efficiencies during peak times. For instance, the iMOVE testbed in Melbourne, Australia, aims to create a transport system that is user-focused and more responsive to disruption, which can be possible by collecting data from cars, cyclists, public transport, traffic infrastructure, and pedestrians,. Other cities, including those in the United Kingdom, are also expected to take a similar approach in the future.
- Since the pandemic struck, contactless fare payments have become the norm. The increasing adoption of smarter payments has enabled safe, seamless travel for everyone alike. As the world is continuously fighting the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, contactless payments in transportation applications are playing a very crucial role in helping to safeguard the people and ensuring to protect the vehicle operator to collect fares while avoiding close contact with riders.

Key Market Trends
Wearables Occupies the Significant Share

- Smart cards’ growth for smart ticketing systems, coupled with the growth prospects from multiple applications, increases the demand for other ticketing systems, such as contactless methods through smartphones and the latest devices, smart wearables.
- Smart wearable manufacturers, including Samsung, have enabled payment through their smartwatches. Most device manufacturers are making the payments work through their mobile wallet payment-enabled services, such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Garmin Pay, Fitbit Pay, and GooglePay. Although the payments through smartwatches are still in their initial stages, they show a lot of potentials. Such advancements are expected to enable travelers to purchase tickets through their wearable devices.
- For instance, in September 2020, the watch brand Titan partnered with State Bank of India (SBI) to launch of a range of watches equipped with Canada-based Tappy Tech’s wearable payments technology to let consumers make contactless transactions at POS terminals across India, eliminating the need of swiping or inserting their SBI bank card.
- Similarly, companies, like Watchdata Technologies, offer a wide range of products catering to the smart ticketing system, including smart mobile terminal, smart wearable device, contact, and contactless EMV, UICC, e-ID and transportation smartcards, online security tokens, card readers and electronic toll collection (ETC) devices. The end-to-end solutions include secure hardware, operating systems, software applications, and services such as personalization and remote lifecycle management.

Europe Holds the Largest Market Share

- Europe is the home of the leading smart ticketing solution vendors in Europe, such as Infineon Technologies, Gemalto, and Giesecke+Devrient (Germany), which are also increasing their presence in this market by offering integrated payment solutions through partnerships with smart ticket developers and operators.
- The demand for smart ticketing in Germany is driven by the growing tourism industry, simplified technology ecosystem, and the need to innovate more potential ticketing systems across urban areas. The leading payment solution vendors in the region are also increasing their presence in this market by offering integrated payment solutions through partnerships with smart ticket developers and operators.
- With more than 4 billion trips yearly, Paris Region is one of the largest transit networks worldwide, offering its travelers the benefits of contactless mobile ticketing - compatible with existing contactless readers based on Calypso open transit standard. Firms, like Wizway solutions, as enabled contactless mobile ticketing for several key transit authorities and operators.
- Technological advancements in smart ticketing have propelled businesses to adopt technologies, such as RFID, NFC, QR code, and barcode in Germany. The rise of smartphones equipped with NFC technology has introduced the necessary infrastructure for smart ticketing across the industries in the region. RFID technology is extensively used in smart cards due to its cost-effectiveness, and it is commonly accepted in entertainment, sports, and transport, among other industries.

Competitive Landscape
The smart ticketing market is moderately concentrated and with the increasing government initiatives in support of this market, more global players are expected to enter this market. Product launches, high expense on research and development, partnerships and acquisitions, etc. are the prime growth strategies adopted by these companies to sustain the intense competition. Some of the global players are Cubic Corporation, Infineon Technologies AG, and HID Global amongst others. Some of the recent developments in the market are:
- October 2020 - The company announced that its ATLAS Ops fare collection system has achieved Visa Ready for Transit certification. Conduent’s ATLAS Open Media back-office module and its VPE 430 smartcard ticket validator device have been certified by the international Visa Ready for Transit program, which recognizes ready-to-deploy solutions that simplify payments for public transportation services and reduce the need for traditional tickets or smartcards.
- September 2020 - The Swiss company Winwatch integrated tiny security chips from Infineon Technologies AG almost invisibly into its patented sapphire crystal STISS. The Infineon Technologies AG chip enables fast and secured payment transactions by radio frequency within milliseconds.

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