Moovel’s Latest Tech Brings Company Closer to Dominating Future Transit Payments

Fare Connect is a hardware agnostic service that allows transit agencies to implement new fare validation systems, or modify existing ones, at any time without having to deal with proprietary hardware agreements, Sadhana Shenoy, chief financial officer of moovel, told Auto Finance News. As an embedded development kit (EDK), Fare Connect can be installed into any public transit ticketing hardware, Shenoy said and is already used by the Orange County Transportation Authority on approximately 500 of their buses. The overarching idea behind a hardware agnostic service like Fare Connect is that as future mobility evolves, and the need for open-source smart cities increases, moovel can play a role in bringing all transportation options and their payments under a single umbrella.“We want to provide a mobility platform that allows us to access all the transit options, and we want to have an app that rules it all and is a single point of entry and payment for all transit options,” Shenoy said. “We are experienced in working with agencies and we process millions of dollars through our app.”

Installing the EDK is quick; the device can be managed remotely, and it can validate multiple payment options, including QR codes, Aztec barcodes, NFC and Bluetooth, as well as identify invalid tickets, among other features. With the ease of use, Fare Connect aims to assist public transit agencies with moving swiftly when it comes to adopting and adapting the new tech, Shenoy said.

“Our goal is to make public transit less expensive, more efficient and more available,” she added.

As a subsidiary of Daimler AG, moovel is in a unique position to scale its payment services. At the moment, the company uses traditional payment solutions, Shenoy said, but moovel is developing its use of contactless payment systems such as PayCash, which was recently acquired by Daimler Financial Services.

“But in the long run, I see us enhancing our platform through stored value systems…like a digital wallet,” she said, adding that with all the industry interest surrounding payment solutions within autonomous vehicles, moovel is also looking into the self-driving space.