 "NXP Enables Smart Ticketing For Indian Railways")
NXP Semiconductors, an independent company founded by Philips, recently announced that its secure microcontroller-based chip technology MIFARE DESFire has been selected by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), an IT organisation under the Ministry of Railways, to power contactless smartcards for automatic fare collection using ATVMs (Automatic Ticket Vending Machines) across India. Indian Railways will utilise NXP’s technology solutions to improve the overall passenger experience and drive operational efficiencies.
In 2007, CRIS first developed smartcard-based contactless ticketing solutions using NXP’s MIFARE 1KB Classic chip for Mumbai Suburban Railway and Chennai, wherein approximately five lakh cards were issued to passengers using the Central/ Western Railway in Mumbai and the Southern Railway in Chennai.
T L Chow, VP-APAC for NXP spoke about the future of contact-less transactional technology and how it could change the way we pay for services. “Enterprises and the government can use this technology to bid for the Multi-Purpose National Identity Card [MNIC] project. We have seen this being executed in several countries like Portugal, Thailand etc. Also, as this technology matures, there’ll be a lot many applications for Near Field Communications and contact-less transactions, both for enterprises and consumers.”
This partnership with NXP and Siepmann’s Card Systems will help CRIS to provide a secure, cost-effective and superior offering to commuters on Indian Railways.
Ashok Chandak, senior director, Global Sales and Marketing (India) for NXP Semiconductors, said, ‘We see a significant growth in the use of contactless smartcard technology in transport systems in India and are well positioned to cater to the needs of current transport infrastructure upgrades, especially road and rail projects."
Talking about the benefits and potential of e-governance, Chow said, “There is no denying the fact that e-governance has helped us in more ways than one. However, it is up to the government to figure out how ready and willing it is to invest in a particular project, for example, the MNIC project. An MNIC must contain all the vital information of a person, which proves him a citizen, the security should be such that it is virtually tamper-proof. And it should do more than being just another ID card.”
The ATVMs will be rolled out across five major cities in India, namely New Delhi, Secunderabad, Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar and Pune. Together with card and inlay-manufacturer Siepmann’s Card Systems, NXP will provide MIFARE DESFire-based ICs for approximately 6.5 lakh contactless cards over a period of one year. This project is expected to go live in September 2009 and will initially be rolled out in two cities. The smartcard ticketing solution being developed by CRIS using NXP’s MIFARE DESFire technology is based on the international ISO 14443A standard, and provides high levels of security.