Mobility Solutions for Public Transportation
Welcome to Kontron Public Transportation, where innovation meets mobility excellence. As pioneers in the transportation technology sector, our mission is clear: to deliver modern, intelligent mobility solutions through a comprehensive portfolio of hardware, software, and services.
We are committed to keeping our clients ahead in their markets, enhancing passenger experiences, and reducing operational expenses. Combining innovation, advanced analytics, and industry insight, we create reliable, intuitive, and forward-looking mobility systems.
At Kontron, we are committed to making transportation faster, safer, more accessible, and efficient. Our solutions are designed to revolutionize the way people move, ensuring seamless journeys for passengers and operators alike.
Solutions
MOBI.FARE: KONTRON ACCOUNT BASED TICKETING
Account Based Ticketing (ABT)
ABT systems revolutionize fare management for public transportation. By transferring intelligence from fare devices to the back office, along with fare policy, products, and pricing, these systems offer enhanced flexibility and convenience for passengers. ABT facilitates better planning for operators and improves service quality, making it a modern, cost-effective solution for managing fares and ridership. At Kontron, we prioritize passenger satisfaction, simplicity, and operator ease. That's why we offer Mobi.fare, our robust Account Based Ticketing solution. Mobi.fare is fully scalable, cloud-hosted, and inclusive, catering to all sizes and needs of transport operators or authorities. Easy to implement and manage, it grows seamlessly with your service. Our solution empowers customers to transition to a modern, open ticketing platform while retaining the use of various media types. With Mobi.fare, passengers enjoy streamlined travel experiences, freeing them from traditional payment hassles and aligning with their lifestyle preferences.
Benefits of ABT
- Convenience & Accessibility: Account-based ticketing eliminates the need for physical media, enabling seamless fare payments via smartphones or linked cards, reducing ticket management hassle.
- Real-time Fare Management: Account-based ticketing allows dynamic fare adjustments, fare capping, and targeted incentives, optimizing revenue and encouraging ridership in real-time.
- Improved Security & Fraud Prevention: Account-based ticketing ties fare transactions to user accounts and authenticated methods, reducing fraud risk and revenue leakage compared to traditional systems.
- Flexibility & Scalability: Account-based systems easily adapt to fare structure changes and technological advancements, enabling transit agencies to evolve without costly infrastructure updates.
Highlights of the Kontron Solution
System Overview
Kontron's Account Based Ticketing (ABT) solution offers an extensive array of features and sales channels, benefiting both public transport operators and passengers.
Our portfolio includes mobile ticketing, providing a convenient and user-friendly experience on smartphones, thereby encouraging greater public transport usage.
The system is scalable, utilizing an "off-the-shelf" ABT platform that allows for seamless integration with third-party systems (e.g., ITCS, ERP, trip planners) and deployment of preferred hardware solutions.
Additionally, it features robust reporting capabilities and an intuitive customer support application.
Passenger
- Customer Mobile Application mobi.app
Kontron’s customer branded mobile application effectively handles passenger’s profile management and payment method management. Passengers can shop and do account activity inquiries. This app is both visually appealing and intuitive to use. Passengers appreciate the ease of travel this app offers.
- Customer Website mobi.web
Kontron provides a customer-branded website for Passengers who desire a computer web-interface. The website’s functionality will parallel that of the mobile application and offer a wide range of sales features and sales channels for the benefit of the public transportation operators and the satisfaction of its customers. We pride ourselves on the ease of use our website offers, making for a positive customer experience.
- Smart Card, Bank Card, Smart Token
The Kontron solution is compatible with a variety of smart cards/tokens offering ultimate flexibility for the users including bank and credit cards , smart cards, and other ISO 14443 A/B compatible tags, gadgets and devices as IDs. With our solution, one account can have many associated tokens such as phones, cards and bracelets and used to support family members.
- Paper Ticket
Although the aim is to minimize reliance on paper tickets, the Kontron solution accommodates the usage of single-use printed paper tickets. We facilitate the utilization of printed voucher codes, redeemable for prepaid products, and offer printed stored value top-up tickets that can be scanned to add value to a customer account. Moreover, paper tickets can be employed to ensure anonymous ridership experiences.
Operations
- Vehicle Equipment mobi.validator
The Kontron validators are compact and ruggedized for public transportation. With a powerful processor, they offer excellent transaction processing, maximizing customer throughput and minimizing waiting times. Accepting various media types like barcodes, smartcards, and bank cards, our validators hold all required certifications such as EMV L1 and L2, PCI PTS ITxPT, etc.
- Customer Support Tool mobi.care
Our goal is to enhance customer service convenience and functionality for public transportation operators. Utilizing the Kontron Customer Service Tool, operators can efficiently search and access customer accounts, displaying their account history. This tool empowers agencies to view purchased product statuses, suspend accounts, refund fares, and reissue fare articles as needed
- Inspection solution mobi.inspect
Kontron's Android Inspection Application is compatible with any NFC-enabled device. With a simple scan, inspectors can quickly validate the customer's product or NFC token The status of customer’s accounts can be easily verified. For specialized fares, ridership class and photo ID can be requested as prompted by the app.
- Point of Sale mobi.pos
The Kontron Android Point-of-Sale Application can be utilized on any NFC enabled device. Optionally, this device can be attached to a printer for added functionality. With this application, the operator can sell prepaid products by producing a scannable barcode to add products to an account. Likewise, accounts can be topped up using the NFC enable device by producing a scannable barcode to add value directly to the account.
Back Office
- Fare Management mobi.mgmt
Kontron’s ready to deploy fare management module is adaptable to local needs and specific requirements. Our supported fare types include fixed, pre-paid, pay as you go, subscriptions, zones and distance based fares. With our solution, agencies can seamlessly introduce and retire products, modify fare features, and swiftly adjust sales conditions to meet new circumstances. We provide built-in support for ridership classes and special fares, with the option for fare capping to be defined by day, week, or month.
- Reports and Dashboards mobi.report
At Kontron, we leverage a standard catalogue of reports covering sales, registrations, usage, and more. For those with more specific requirements, our solution offers operators access to ad-hoc reports tailored to their needs. All reports are exportable to Excel, PDF, and various other formats for convenience and flexibility.
- Third Party Integrations/API's mobi.API
Kontron harnesses an open architecture that facilitates seamless integration with a diverse range of systems, including ITCS, Google Maps, Transit App, Bike Share, and Parking. With a forward-thinking approach, we prioritize compatibility with future and third-party technologies, ensuring adaptability and scalability for our clients.
- Business to Business mobi.b2b
Effective coordination with third parties is essential for the success of many public transportation operations. With Kontron's solution, agencies can effortlessly register business-to-business partners, including schools, universities, and corporations. We streamline the management of products and beneficiaries, facilitating the distribution of products to qualified individuals. Additionally, we offer comprehensive follow-up reporting, invoicing, and reconciliation services once products have been utilized, ensuring smooth operations and accountability.
Products
Kontron Public Transportation has great expertise in offering fit-for-purpose vehicle and station embedded hardware.
The hardware portfolio ranges over products for specific environments, from in-vehicle ticketing, inspection and communication systems to station/stops and parking environments. It includes a broad spectrum of devices integrated with Kontron solutions, with on-board computers and communication gateways, driver consoles, ticket vending machines, contactless vehicle validators, outdoor validators and metro gates with metro gate validators, and passenger information system.
Kontron hardware is fully integrated with our ticketing software platform but can act perfectly as standalone systems. The Kontron equipment is manufactured to Kontron’s own design specifications, guaranteeing Kontron production capacity and product life cycle management.
Kontron hardware complies with market standards and has all the requested certificates.
SALES, VALIDATION AND ACCESS
Easy access to public transportation requires a broad range of convenient sales, validation and access control system. We deliver diverse options for powerful field devices and our validators and ticket vending machines encourage passengers to start journeys with confidence.
Vehicle Validators
One of the flagship products of Kontron Public Transportation is the rugged and compact contactless vehicle validator, which delivers an industry leading validation experience for our customers’ passengers.
With its powerful processor, the Kontron validator offers excellent transaction processing performance, maximizes passenger throughput and minimizes waiting times. It provides clear feedback and instructions to passengers. The device accepts various kinds of contactless media and barcodes and guarantees full flexibility with its on-demand configuration, for example in terms of the contactless reader in place or screen size and type.
The Kontron design incorporates an industrial grade validation device with a focus on ergonomics and durability. The validation unit is user-friendly, housed in an attractive, compact, impact resistant, polycarbonate, plastic case (IP54). A simple mounting kit makes it fast and easy to install validators in vehicles. Removal and swap out of validators can be performed in seconds.
The validator functions as a stand-alone device or can be integrated with other intelligent transportation systems.
The Kontron validator is Kontron’s own device, manufactured to Kontron’s own design specifications, guaranteeing the use of Kontron production capacity and product life cycle management. It comes in three flavors: high-end, mid-range and economy line.
Station/Outdoor Validators
The station validator design incorporates an industrial grade validation device specifically designed for open environments (such as stations and platforms).
The validator features a robust and weather -proof housing with a high focus on its ergonomics and ruggedness.
The design of the user interface elements has been carried out with the aim of facilitating contactless card validation and consultation operations for all users, giving priority to passengers with reduced mobility.
The unit is able to process passengers’ tokens, cards and barcodes, enabling the electronic validation for all major transport ticketing formats including smartcards and barcodes.
Metro Gates and Metro Validators
Metro gates and metro turnstiles ensure a seamless access to public transport services. They provide automatic fare collection for public transport systems that combines high passenger throughput and safety with reliability, robustness and effective prevention of fare evasion.
The station gate validation unit is a fully functional contactless validator that integrates different contactless technologies. It has been designed specifically for integration into the Kontron and other types of gates. In combination with intelligent sensor technology, Kontron advanced validation technology ensures fast processing of contactless ticket and payment media and a seamless travel experience, while preventing tailgating.
Ticket Vending Machines
Kontron offers fast and reliable ticketing services through their Ticket Vending Machine solutions. The machine’s intuitively positioned graphic display, card reader and payment modules, speed up ticketing services. The TVM is designed taking into account all kinds of ergonomically related elements in terms of different types of users, including wheelchair users.
The Automatic Vending Machines have a solid steel housing, offering a high protection against vandalism and tampering. The modular construction allows for various configurations and facilitates the maintenance of the device. It comes both in full range and cashless form factor.
Latest Ticket Vending Machines incorporate, as most relevant elements, a 43” touch screen and its combination together with the audio systems for fluid communication between the user and the machine itself, without the intervention of any operator.
VEHICLE INFRASTRUCTURE
In highly performant and complex environments, and public transportation is one of them, vehicles need to be equipped with devices that smoothly manage various inter-connected subsystems (Ticketing system – Passenger information – Fleet and schedule monitoring). Drivers need a display to improve access to information whilst out in service and to connect to service and operations centers.
HMI Driver Consoles
Driver consoles feature touchscreen displays and can handle both ITCS and AFC applications. Kontron offers an interactive 10”4 or 8’’ touch display for drivers and/or technical staff, designed for use in public transport vehicles: bus and railway. Devices feature large and reliable touch displays and are used for journey management, vehicle control, and on-board camera management. They feature intuitive user experience, high speed processing as well as adaptable mounting fixation and easy device replacement
Board Computers and Communication Boxes
The on-board computers integrate with on-board systems such as audio and visual announcement systems, video surveillance, traffic signal priority and infotainment displays.
Kontron communication boxes are a central point of data communication in the vehicle, routing data between different data sources: Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 4G/LTE, etc. It acts as a real-time GPS information source onboard. It features the possibility to host third-party applications and has real CPU possibilities.
Downloads
>> Tech Specs Driver Bus Console
>> Tech Specs Driver 10.4 Inch Rail Display
>> Tech Specs Automatic Vending Machine
>> Tech Specs Passenger Information System
IOT - SECURE OS/OVER THE AIR UPDATES AND DEVICE MONITORING
All Kontron solutions include Secure OS/over the air updates and device monitoring.
The over the air device software update feature enables to schedule application updates in the system. It is performed over the air when buses are not in operation. Device monitoring module monitors the health of all the different system components in real-time, using online connections, and uses a flexible notification system for alerts. It also offers an excellent reporting, statistics & data visualization sub-system. The intuitive design simplifies the management of the entire device fleet and reduces the effort for typical tasks such as data management or fare maintenance. You can access the devices and execute direct commands remotely. This way, disruptions can be solved quickly, and on-site technicians are freed up.
Services
Kontron also offers a range of services to public transport companies, including project management, corrective and preventive hardware maintenance, software support and maintenance, field support and training of system users and maintenance personnel. The trouble-free operation of our equipment is guaranteed by our service centers in cooperation with external certified services.
Kontron has adequate resources, tools, knowledge and experience in place to ensure a full circle of after-sales care, repair, updates/upgrades and technical support. We are also open to cooperating with new customers and new hardware.
Success stories
Kontron Public Transportation, in its mobility domain, is active internationally and its focus markets include Europe and North America. Depending on the specific solution or customer, a worldwide approach or a more market-tailored focus is applied. Equipment has been installed in over 31,000 vehicles worldwide. Europe accounts for approximately 25,000 vehicles while around 1,000 vehicles have been equipped in the US. The installed base also includes more than 41,000 validators, out of which 37,600 are represented by Europe and 1,000 by the US, 900 ticket vending machines and 2300 metro gates. References can be found in markets such as Germany, Austria, Belgium, Romania, the US, the UK, Spain, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Sweden, Russia and Tunisia, Tanzania, South Africa and Ghana. Examples of major references in Europe include De Lijn and NMBS/SNCB in Belgium; Arriva, Veolia, Keolis and EBS in the Netherlands; Bilbao and Madrid in Spain, Metrorex and STIB in Romania.
Our employees have many years of experience in the public transportation industry and are fully qualified and capable of partnering with governments, municipalities, public transport authorities and operators to deliver a top of the line systems. We take pride in our ability to work with our customers to uncover their short term and long term goals and provide solutions to meet those goals.
DE LIJN, BELGIUM
De Lijn is an autonomous governmental company that is responsible for the public transport in the Flemish region in Belgium. De Lijn transports on a yearly basis approximately 550 million passengers and employs over 8000 people.
The overall desire of De Lijn was to have an open system that would make them less dependent on proprietary solutions. We delivered a fully integrated ReTiBo (Registration, Ticketing, Board computer) system, based on dual-interface Calypso smartcards and contactless smart tickets (MoBIB), combining ticketing and ITCS equipment and numerous integrations with 3rd party systems.
The delivery of the project met and exceeded the abovementioned needs. Kontron installed the fare collection and ITCS equipment on De Lin’s entire fleet (about 4.200 buses and 370 trams).
CONCESSIONS IN THE NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands is a country with a complex state of the art public transport ticketing system model combined with Intermodal Transport Control System (ITCS). There are different concessions operated by several private transport operators, all interoperable and transparent to ease passenger’s travel experience. In this framework, Kontron delivers a fare collection solution for buses based on contactless smart cards (as per applicable standards in the Netherlands) and acceptance of barcode tickets. In addition, we also ensure the delivery of an ITCS solution that integrates with 3rd party systems allowing for the distribution of real-time passenger information. The ITCS solution itself is also integrated with the fare collection system on board.
MARTA, ATLANTA IN THE US
The project at MARTA included the delivery of a mobile ticketing system. The project's scope includes a unique ticketing system installed on fixed route buses and light rail stations. In the scope of the system, a mobile ticketing application, customer service web portal, and back office systems were developed and deployed. The system supports a mobile ticketing system through smart devices based on MARTA’s current card data structure. The system supports MARTA as well as it is Georgia regional partners and integrates different payment subsystems. In the scope of the project, in addition to mobile, Kontron also delivered the online customer portal for account management and customer outreach and a customer support tool.
MADRID METRO, SPAIN
Madrid Metro is the 3rd network of Europe by length and has a total of 302 stations.
Kontron has an installed base of more than 350 ATVMs and 760 Fare Gates in Madrid Metro. In 2023 a contract for the supply of 188 new ticketing vending machines was awarded to Kontron. This new machines provide service of ticket sales combined with an innovative design and functionalities. The new machines feature a 43” touch screen, used to present station maps or timetables as well as an interactive ‘video wall’ for passengers and to implement digital ads and other multimedia content. They also incorporate audio systems for fluid communication between the user and the machine itself.
RENFE, SPAIN
Renfe Viajeros is the Spanish National Public Rail Operator.
Cronos Project in the Renfe Suburban Areas of Madrid, Cádiz y Bilbao focuses on modernization of the access control systems – gates and gate validators – based on the use of physical or virtual EMV bank cards and QR tickets, for in total of 300 devices.
The total installed base in the Spanish Public Rail Operator is of almost 1000 fare gates and 64 TVMs.
BILBAO METRO, SPAIN
Metro Bilbao is a metropolitan railway who serves this City and its metropolitan area, called Great Bilbao. Composed of 2 lines, Kontron has an installed base of 151 ATVMs and 450 Fare Gates.
BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
Romania, Kontron was the first provider of contactless ticketing system (cEMV) for public transportation (in 2020). Over the years of implementing fare collection systems, the company has delivered and installed over 16,000 validators in the Bucharest-Ilfov region alone, with over 5000 validators equipped with cEMV technology, and over 300 ticket vending machines in various locations.
Currently, Kontron Services Romania provides an Account Based Ticketing solution, a product suite including all the components of a ticketing system and EMV solution. Our most recent implementation is in Sibiu, Romania, a city of approx. 150.000 inhabitants. The system has been in use since end of 2023, with significant increase in sales and number of regular travelers.
Our current implementations also include Targu Mures – also 150.000 inhabitants and Slobozia – 41.000 inhabitants.
Our locations and contact
Contact us at info.kpt@kontron.com
Kontron Public Transportation Arce
Bilbao, Spain
Plaza Euskadi, 5, 27th Floor
48009 Bilbao
Kontron Public Transportation NV
Diegem, Belgium
Culliganlaan 1A
1831 Diegem
Belgium
Kontron Services Romania
One Business Center
Gheorghe Polizu 58 – 60
Bucharest
Romania
Kontron America, Inc.
Mount Vernon
Iowa, US
