Konya, a city with a population of 1.1 million citizens, is in full economic ascent and the transportation system is a key element in the development of the city. To increase the market share of public transport, the authorities have implemented the contactless bank card payment system for both citizens and tourists.
Regarding railway transport in the city, the most important projects are the high-speed lines providing connection with Ankara (in operation since 2011), Konya- Eskişehir railway, but also the project on the construction of the railway connecting Konya to the cities of Karaman and Mersin. Konya public transport focuses on providing bus services, while railway transport is represented by a tram network and a light metro line which is 21-km long.
According to the authorities’ plans, the tram network will be extended to form a rail public transport system that would meet the challenges imposed by mobility demands. To increase the share of public transport, the authorities have launched projects on the modernisation of the tram fleet (a deal on the delivery of 60 trams was signed in 2013 with Skoda), but also projects to upgrade the ticketing system. This year, the municipality will invest EUR 165 Million in the public transport system which is a third of the budget.
As part of the services facilitation programme, the credit card and mobile payment system was introduced (implemented in all public transport vehicles) for both citizens and tourists. This measure has determined the increase in the number of passengers and the system is used by over 10% of passengers. Interbank Card Centre – BKM (Turkey) was involved in the project launched at the middle of 2013 with third role party facilitating the contact between banks and the municipality providing simplification and reduction of costs. This is the first implementation of BKM (Interbank Card Centre of Turkey), transforming public transportation across Turkey through bank card acceptance.
Due to the projects for the simplification of transport system payments, Konya was one of the finalists of the Mastercard Awards for the Transport Ticketing System – 2014. BKM defined a transportation system, open to all EMV contactless cards, on behalf of member banks, communicating with all validators, acquiring banks and the Municipality as a single contact point; hence all participants, especially the passengers do benefit from the quick, easy and cheap payments.
All passengers (citizens and international cardholders) are enabled to use any contactless bank card with equal pricing to city cards. Currently, 9 banks comprising 94% of contactless issuing (volume) have integrated to the system. Reconciliation between banks and the Municipality is centrally done by BKM that means simplified and low cost operational management. This is a business model that keeps financial relations between the municipality and the banks. At the end of 2013, around 10% of all transportation payment has already moved to bank-cards with 50,000 transactions per month. Number of transactions has an average increase of 60% per month, according to estimates.
Photo: www.skoda.cz
[ by Pamela Luică ]Share on:
