Transport for Wales, Unicard and our project partners were joint winners of the Ticketing and Payments Award at the CiTTi Awards 2024.

We received the award for our work on the Transport for Wales (TfW) contactless tap in, tap out payment service powered by Unicard’s cEMV solution, Ticketing Hub.

We were among a host of transport industry award winners announced at the CiTTi Awards event on November 26 at the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms in London.

The TfW service, which provides capped fares to offer the best value to travellers, went live at the start of 2024 and has been extended across South Wales throughout the year.

Unicard’s Ticketing Hub enabled TfW to become the first UK train operator outside of London to deploy contactless EMV (cEMV) services, which means travellers do not have to pre-purchase a paper or digital ticket for their journey. Instead, they can use a payment card or mobile device to tap in and out on Vix gates at ticket barriers at the start and end of every train journey.

Ticketing Hub receives and processes these taps, sending them to iBlocks’ Account Based Ticketing (ABT) Back Office. This calculates the value of each trip, taking into account customers’ travel patterns and behaviour. Unicard then ensure that an accurate and secure payment is made based on the overall journey.

Importantly, unlike other cEMV solutions, Ticketing Hub is agnostic to the card reader used, so scheme administrators can mix equipment within a single deployment. The Unicard solution is also multi-modal and multi-operator, creating a future-proofed ticketing environment for developing more integrated transport networks.

Jan-Erik Anderson, Unicard’s Head of Sales and our Account Manager for TfW, was at the CiTTi event to accept the award.

He said: “It is fantastic to win this award with Transport for Wales. It’s testament to the innovation in public transport that TfW are delivering for the people of Wales, the hard work from all involved, and the strength of our Ticketing Hub solution in delivering PAYG travel.”

Solent Transport was also a winner at the CiTTi Awards 2024 in the Mobility-as-a-Service category for its Breeze app, which Unicard helped to implement.

Unicard’s Rail Suite platform, designed to support rail accreditation, has enabled Solent Transport to sell rail tickets through the app.

The Breeze app was developed for the Solent region and is the UK’s first multi-city Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) app. It’s a revolutionary new way to book and pay for journeys across all types of transport, including buses, trains, ferries and e-scooters/bikes. It also acts as a personal travel assistant: helping to find the quickest, cheapest and greenest route.

Congratulations also to one of our customers, Transport Scotland, who won the CiTTi Clean Air Initiative of the Year Award.

This year, 115 entries were submitted by nearly 100 organisations for the third annual CiTTi Awards.

The CiTTi Awards celebrates innovation demonstrated by UK public-sector organisations and their private-sector partners in enabling the safe, efficient and sustainable movement of people, goods and materials through urban environments.

Its organiser publishes City Transport & Traffic Innovation Magazine (CiTTi), the UK’s leading business publication for urban transport and traffic professionals.