15 Nov 2011
 
The open standard policy of the OPST alliance raises the value of transit fare collection system
The Open Standard for Public Transport (OSPT) Alliance recently announced that Samsung Electronics has joined the OSPT Alliance. As a full member of the Alliance, Samsung will pursue the development of commercialised semiconductor products for building next-generation transit fare collection systems based on the CIPURSE™ open security standard.

"We are pleased to join OSPT as a full member and work together with industry leaders to develop enhanced security solutions based on the CIPURSE open security standard," said Dojun Rhee, vice president of system LSI marketing, Samsung Electronics. "The open standard policy of the OSPT alliance raises the value of the CIPURSE-based next-generation transit fare collection system and is expected to play an important role in facilitating adoption of the new standard to smart card and NFC-based transportation payment eco-systems."

The CIPURSE open security standard addresses the need by transit authorities for future-proof fare collection systems with more advanced security than currently in use. Because it is an open standard, CIPURSE promotes vendor neutrality, cross-vendor system interoperability, lower technology adoption risks, higher quality and improved market responsiveness, all of which result in lower operating costs and greater flexibility for transport system operators. CIPURSE also offers a global basis for a faster transition of transit fare systems to the use of emerging NFC mobile phones and other devices and support for the adoption of NFC transit applications for a truly future-proof solution.

"Having Samsung join the OSPT Alliance as a full member marks an important milestone in our efforts to create an ecosystem of technology suppliers and others to develop new, interoperable transit fare collection solutions based on open-standard security, and demonstrates how open systems foster more flexible and cost-effective solutions," said Laurent Cremer, executive director for the OSPT Alliance. "Samsung's implicit endorsement of the CIPURSE standard will help promote our vision of bringing all the benefits that result from an open, competitive marketplace to the public transport market."