Is Nice the Smartest City in the World? - Part Two

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This is the concluding part of our research into the innovative Near Field Communications programme implemented in the French city of Nice. To read the first part published 6th July 2010 please click here

Airport

Technically this is not part of the Cityzi scheme but it is possible for a CAP member to use the same NFC enabled mobile phone for both schemes.

In the very first trial of NFC technology in air travel anywhere in the world, frequent flyers with Air France using the Nice-Paris Orly domestic route and Members of Nice Airport's passenger programme Club Airport Premier (CAP) took part in a pilot to validate the use the technology for paperless ticket and boarding pass.

The “Pass and Fly” pilot, as it was known, provided more accurate and faster MI whilst improving and speeding up the customer experience. It also required less manual effort and thus has the potential to deliver savings and efficiency gains for the airline and the airport operator.

This innovative pilot project that began in April 2009 and concluded in October 2009, is a collaboration between Nice Côte d'Azur Airport and Air France, who have partnered with IER, the supplier of the NFC enabled sticker for a similar pilot by Air New Zealand, and Amadeus. Both Nice Côte d'Azur Airport and Air France have since adopted the technology and offer it as a core service.

IER built NFC kiosks readers are integrated with the airport's infrastructure and interfaced with Air France's passenger management system.

Amadeus supply the software for the mobile phones, departure control system and airport readers, which captures and displays information relevant to the customers progress through the departure process.

Air France have issued Nokia 6212 handsets to some CAP members and NFC stickers to others. The stickers provide a non NFC mobile phone with NFC capability and thus allow the customer to join the programme and enjoy the benefits of the new service.

Once registered for the service, CAP members with their “Pass and Fly” enabled mobile phone check in through either the internet, mobile phone, self-service channel at the airport. Once checked in the customer swipes their NFC enabled mobile phone across a reader to download the electronic IATA compatible boarding pass.

Then the customer is fast tracked through security checks control by waving the mobile phone across the NFC reader which links to the Airlines passenger information and displays the boarding pass to the security staff without the need for the customer to display their mobile phone screen.. In fact the mobile phone does not even need to be switched on. The same process is followed for boarding where a voucher is printed with seat details.

As an additional functionality the CAP members also accrue loyalty points via the use of the NFC mobile phone during this process which the Airline is using to incentivise customers to drive take-up.

If the Airline operated a “free sea\ting” policy or equipped the cabin crew with powered hand held readers, this would result in a completely paperless journey.

Feedback from customers has been very positive with the key benefits being speed of transit through the airport, easy to use, convenient not to have to handle paper, and elimination of delays due to lost / misplaced tickets / boarding cards.

For the Airline, they have more satisfied customers, and reduce costs. Whilst the airport can keep queues to a minimum which also reduces security and health and safety risks. .

Compared the mobile boarding pass solution that uses 2-D barcodes as used in New Zealand and elsewhere, NFC is more efficient in terms of speed of transaction and as the phone does not require power it less prone to errors and delays. However, in this deployment, it does not provide a completely paperless process yet.

Smart Muse, Access to Information

The Smart Muse proof of concept project provides a number of NFC enabled services to patrons of the museum the best example is in the Centre Pompidou, an art museum in Paris, and “Walking Tours” of the Old City of Nice. However Nice have already made it clear that they fully intend to rollout the solution to their own museums as soon as they have positive feedback from their own project along with that from the one at the Centre Pompidou.

Visitors to the museum are provided, free of charge, with an NFC Wave-Me™- enabled handset using software from Inside Contactless, which is hosted by ConnecThings, a who specialise in the provision of contextualized location and time based content management systems (CMS),

The handset, supplied by Sagem, is then used to gain access to information about a particular exhibit simply by holding it close to an NFC tag in a poster or label situated adjacent to the exhibit itself. The smart tag has a Unique Identifier (UID) this is read by the handset and then communicated to the CMS over a wireless connection. The information about that exhibit is then sent back to visitor via the handset’s screen in a language of their choice.

The Hand set is a two way communication device and so can also be used to send visitor feedback to the Curators and museum manager about a exhibits or the visitors general experience.

To get benefit beyond the actual visit to the museum the visitor can register interest in a particular artist or exhibit and receive further information, videos etc via e-mail or even their Facebook page.

The scheme at the Centre Pompidou has received c450€ funding from France's Ministry of Economy, Industry and Employment which equates to around 30 percent of the total development and deployment cost of more than 1.5M€. The remainder will be funded by the consortium partners who are essentially donating their expertise, software and hardware. It is not clear if the implementation in Nice will receive similar funding.

Cultural Events – Information Dissemination

Local residents and visitors to the Old City of Nice are able to obtain information about local events, cultural and activities by presenting their NFC enabled mobile phone to the Cityzi branded signposts with NFC chips. The vast majority of these signposts are part of the walking tour scheme and so this is an effective use of existing infrastructure.

Retailers

As part of the payment application a number of retailers including Carrefour, E.Leclerc Intermarché, and several town-center merchants have signed up for the scheme to accept payment by NFC device

Jewelry retailer Cléor are piloting an innovative inventory tracking window, using RFID. Each item has an RFID tag and there are proximity readers on the window access area, when an item passes through this area it is added or removed from the store’s inventory as appropriate. This speeds up stock management and can also trigger the ordering of new stock. By logging the date and time an item is added or removed from the window display it is also seen as a deterrent to staff theft.

There are also other applications being planned like the Real time inventory management, display, anti theft system, location, and customer loyalty for textile and clothing shops, and the RFID logistic chains for meat to allow real time traceability, already being used across Europe by the larger supermarkets.

University

The Nice Future Campus project allows c300 students at the Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis campus to use NFC-enabled phones for a variety of services both on and off campus.

This is a fairly comprehensive scheme with a budget of c2M€ involving 7 key supplier partners delivering several applications including payment, transport, access control, student life (ticketing) and targeted promotional offers

Over a 2 year period the scheme has introduced 3 different Mobile handsets and 4 NFC stickers to enable non NFC mobile phones 3 NFC devices

Employee ID & Access

Businesses in Nice are able to use the infrastructure that the City is putting in place, and such application way is for staff ID and access. The Gemalto provided MoBEMo contactless badge allows employees to use their own NFC enabled phone for Access Control and to make cafeteria payments. Cassis International is developing a system allowing NFC phone holders to access tickets and coupons via a Web-based server.

Home Help Time & attendance & Payment

This is a mobile home-help payment system which replaces paper cheques., RFID tags in name badges communicate with the mobile devices to log in hours and claim payments

The Nice scheme has been described as the "dress rehearsal" for

a nationwide NFC rollout in 2011.

Have you read this article and now need more information on smartcard, mobile or NFC technologies? If so click www.consultingsmart.co.uk or contact the author sbeecroft@consultingsmart.co.uk

Consulting Smart Ltd provide specialist consultancy on the design and deployment of smart card and NFC technologies. For more information on how we can help your organisation realise the full benefits please seewww.consultingsmart.co.ukor email us atinfo@consultingsmart.co.uk

12 More NFC / RFID Projects Announced for France

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As a follow up to my blog post "Is Nice the Smartest City in the World" of 6th July 2010, I can confirm that we have been made aware of an announcement by Christian Estrosi, the French Minister for Industry and the Mayor of Nice, details of a further twelve NFC and RFID projects. Estrosi also confirmed combined funding of €4.5 million from the French government for the new projects..

The successful projects include applications in the trade, tourism, health and homecare services, sustainable development and consumer services. They include:

· M_Stadium. France Telecom plans to develop a range of NFC services for stadium events including paperless tickets, accreditation and interactive labels scattered in and around the stadiums.

· NFC-TTH. SNCF Proximités plans to develop a range of services transport and tourism for handicapped travellers using NFC, RFID and geolocation services.

· Onco-Trace. Creative Eurecom aims to use RFID and NFC technology to improve the way in which patients receiving chemotherapy treatments are monitored, both in hospitals and in the home.

· Self Scan Mobile. Keyneosoft is to develop a service to enable self scan retail checkouts to be replaced with NFC mobile phones, including integrating the service with mobile shopping lists, couponing and payments functions.

· Shop'N'more. Laser Loyalty is to develop an NFC-based multi-brand loyalty and promotions system.

· Alice. Mindscape has received funding to develop a B2B2C service platform using the Nabaztag RFID rabbit.

· Autopartage. A car sharing application proposed by Continental Automotive aims to increase the use of car sharing services using NFC technology.

· Barfid. Systerel plans to use RFID technology to develop a new type of level crossing barrier that will provide a higher level of safety for uses of rail crossings.

· Confiance. Extelia is to develop a trusted third party platform designed specifically to meet the needs of the service sector, making it easier to handle the service billing process.

Our eternal thanks go to Sarah Clarke of www.nearfieldcommunicationsworld.com for her original post

Consulting Smart Ltd provide specialist consultancy on the design and deployment of smart card and NFC technologies. For more information on how we can help your organisation realise the full benefits please see www.consultingsmart.co.uk or email us at info@consultingsmart.co.uk

Contactless payments – just hype or the real deal

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By Steve Beecroft

Regulars to this blog, our clients and my peers within the payments industry will know only too well how positive I am towards contactless technology. Having designed and implemented several contactless schemes including NFC I consider myself an advocate of this now fully emerged, technology.

However, like any professional I always look to deliver the the most appropriate guidance to our clients and sometimes that means recommending clients do not to adopt a particular technology. This is something we did through our sporting venues division 'Smart Stadia Ltd, when a football club from West Yorkshire asked for assistance in defining the best next steps in their modernisation project.

Do we regret doing this ...... NO, it was what the client needed but not necessarily what they wanted to hear but is was absolutely the right thing for them. That was back in March this year and I have since had a call from the clubs Chief Executive thanking me for our ethical approach and inviting Smart Stadia Ltd to lead the next phase of their modernisation project for multi-application season ticket. Even if we had not had that call we would still be very happy that we had given appropriate advice that was in the best interests of the client.

It is our unshakable belief that we all need a balanced view, with this in mind I attach below an article on www.mobile-financial.com

Research from Datamonitor, a market analyst firm, suggests that the much hyped contactless payment market may be a long way off from becoming the norm in the UK despite trials by various retailers.

The research* from the independent market analyst has revealed that despite the huge potential market open to contactless payments the economic downturn has delayed issuers other than Barclaycard from investing in the technology as they just haven’t been able to spend money on it. Meanwhile many retailers are not sure yet if contactless is worth the investment.

Gilles Ubaghs, financial analyst at Datamonitor said: “Retailers could likely find the cash if they were convinced it was worthwhile, but many don’t seem sure there is any real point. Essentially it is a catch 22 as many consumers aren’t interested in having a contactless payment card when there are still so few places to use it and retailers don’t want to install the technology as so few people have a card.”

However, Datamonitor does believe that there are promising long term signs that the technology could take off but it won’t be as soon as many analysts predict.

Mr Ubaghs continued “Although contactless payments have been around for nearly 10 years, Barclaycard and London’s Oyster travel card remain the only two high profile companies to offer contactless cards. Investment by other issuers is needed, not only in the technology itself but in educating consumers as well. Consumers will need to be convinced that it is worth their while to use the new technology”

“Importantly, for consumers to be sold on using contactless payments retailers and issuers will need to work together and as this is yet to happen on a large scale. It will be a good deal of time before we’re able to walk into any shop and buy a chocolate bar in the same way as London commuters tap their Oyster cards.”

For the original article click here

Consulting Smart Ltd provide specialist consultancy on the design and deployment of smart card and NFC technologies. For more information on how we can help your organisation realise the full benefits please see www.consultingsmart.co.uk or email us at info@consultingsmart.co.uk

French Minister of Industry Confirms Support for NFC Cities

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By Dan Balaban

Christian Estrosi, France’s minister of industry, has confirmed government support for three to five more cities to launch NFC services in France next year, following the precommercial NFC launch in Nice this spring.

Estrosi, who spoke at a conference Tuesday in Paris, has called on interested city officials and transit authorities in France to declare their intent to become one of the next tier of cities to host contactless-mobile services.

The additional cities would launch NFC sometime in 2011. Estrosi, who is also mayor of Nice, sees the additional cities as the second phase of what he hopes will be a broad deployment of NFC in France. He believes government help for up to five more cities to launch NFC will encourage other French cities to follow. That could lead to national rollouts in 2012, according to the vision.

The three to five cities are to be announced in December. Frontrunners are the cities of Caen and Strasbourg. Both have played host to multiple NFC trials in the past and city officials in both places have expressed strong interest in the technology. Officials in Bordeaux are also keen for the technology, said observers, and the city is also a favorite. Other cities mentioned are Rennes in Brittany, Marseille, Lyon and Grenoble.

Paris is also in the running, but it seems unlikely NFC will launch in the capital until 2012, although observers do expect some smaller projects in Paris next year. Key will be when STIF, the giant transit authority serving Paris and the surrounding region, acts on its plans to put its Navigo contactless ticketing application on NFC phones. A STIF representative did not attend the conference, which was co-organized by the government-funded NFC coordinating organization, Forum des Services Mobile sans Contact.

Like Nice, the three to five cities are expected to host such NFC services as contactless-mobile ticketing and related service discovery, mobile payment, and applications involving mobile tourism and health care. These services would be delivered by transit operators, banks and other service providers.

It remains to be seen how large the projects will become. In Nice, the country’s three major mobile operators, France Telecom-Orange, SFR and Bouygues, plus a mobile virtual network operator NRJ Mobile, have reportedly put only a little more than 3,000 NFC phones on sale.

That number could grow based on demand. And a representative of Orange, speaking at the conference Tuesday, confirmed the telco’s plans to sell 500,000 NFC phones in France by the end of 2011.

It’s unclear exactly what type of support the government will offer to the additional cities it selects to host the NFC services. Some funding is likely, along with indirect support.

The French government is also offering grants to some private companies for development work on NFC. Overall, the government, along with French telcos and some service providers have cast France as a leader in NFC technology. The French government also sees NFC as a promising industry for French vendors.

Thanks to NFC Times

Consulting Smart Ltd provide specialist consultancy on the design and deployment of smart card and NFC technologies. For more information on how we can help your organisation realise the full benefits please seewww.consultingsmart.co.ukor email us atinfo@consultingsmart.co.uk

Dutch Banks and Telcos to Move Forward on M-Payment Project

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By Dan Balaban

Three major Dutch banks and three mobile operators have decided to move forward with planning for an NFC mobile-payment launch in the Netherlands, NFC Times has learned.

The three Dutch banks, Rabobank, ING and ABN Amro; and three telcos, KPN, Vodafone Netherlands and Rabo Mobiel; gave the project the green light at a meeting June 28, following months of discussions, NFC Times has learned. The approval clears a major hurdle for the initiative and means the parties intend to move forward to lay the groundwork for a likely launch sometime in 2011–probably in the latter half of the year, sources told NFC Times.

But the parties are not releasing any details until they announce their plans, expected in a month or two. Representatives from KPN, Rabobank and ING, believed to be the most active members of the group, all issued nearly identical statements to requests for comment from NFC Times about the mobile-payment project.

“We are currently looking into the..................to read the full article click here

Consulting Smart Ltd provide specialist consultancy on the design and deployment of smart card and NFC technologies. For more information on how we can help your organisation realise the full benefits please see www.consultingsmart.co.ukor email us at info@consultingsmart.co.uk

Is Nice the Smartest City in the World? - Part One

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By Steve Beecroft

Smart Technologies Consultant

Consulting Smart Ltd

The French city of Nice, which sits overlooking the tranquil waters of the Mediterranean Sea, was for many years an Italian dominion and became part of France in 1860. France’s fifth largest city Nice is widely believed to be one of the oldest human settlements in the world, so leading from the front and embracing change is embedded deep in the soul of the city.

This background have created a city that seeks continuous development and improvement. So the emergence of a new and innovative technology that delivers efficiencies for the local administration or provide a richer experience for citizens and visitors is almost always explored. Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) technologies are providing the city of Nice the opportunity to again look at improving the lives of the people that live and visit the city. These technologies include Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and contactless Integrated Circuit (IC) chips, like those used in contactless payment cards. When coupled with a Human Interface Device (HID) such as a smart card or mobile phone, both of which are common place in a modern thriving environment, thee technologies can provide a large number of benefits to service providers and service users.

Now Nice is fast gaining a reputation of being a leader in the adoption of new technologies and could well be renamed NFC City such is its appetite to exploit the 360̊ benefits of the technology.

Amongst the Smart Technologies industry London is widely acclaimed the title holder for most technically advanced European city, however Nice is now fast catching up. The recent lull in activity in London and the UK’s seemingly reluctance to fully embrace NFC, and the increased momentum that technology is experiencing, has seen Nice overtake London. Well that is the view of many industry consultants, mostly French consultants it has to be said. Nonetheless they may well be right

Let’s explore some of the recent smart card, mobile and NFC technologies that have been deployed in and around.

Nice, Mobile Contactless City, The Multi- application Scheme

Private sector suppliers Gemalto, a world leader in digital security, Crédit Mutuel-CIC and NRJ Mobile have joined forces to offer contactless mobile payment services as part of the “Nice, mobile contactless city” project. Backed by the French government this project builds on the success for similar contactless payment rollouts in both Caen and Strasburg.

The scheme also includes a number of service providers including local transport in the form of busses and trams, banks, museums, restaurants, supermarkets and local retailers. Information dissemination services will also be available at the museum and university campus via smart posters.

Crédit Mutuel-CIC, the first French bank to launch a mobile banking service, are acting as the payment services provider, NRJ Mobile supplying the NFC enabled mobile phones and telecommunications company Orange will provide mobile services. This allows users to pay for goods and services using contactless, tap n’ go, technology in total confidence, thanks to the dedicated Trusted Services Management module that Gemalto are providing Crédit Mutuel-CIC with.

The scheme will be part of the newly created Cityzi brand name. It is based on an open platform and is governed by a set or technical specifications enabling easy participation for local service providers and retailers. Participants in the scheme can publicise the level of their involvement with a full set of marketing material including a set of Cityzi logos as follows:-

Four logos are available in all:

A logo which shows a service or a contactless mobile device is compatible with AFSCM specifications.

A 'ici Cityzi' ('Cityzi here') logo displayed prominently — in doorways and on cashtills, in the same way as card acceptance logos — in all places where Cityzi services can be used.

A target mark, to show consumers where to hold their device when interacting with a Cityzi service via a poster, billboard or other NFC-enabled object.

An icon displayed on the consumer's mobile device, allowing quick access to the list of Cityzi applications stored on the handset

The initiative is being led by Christian Estrosi, Nice City Council’s, deputy mayor, and is designed to interface with Trusted Service Partner platforms in an open environment. It also complies with the latest European Payment Council (EPC) GSMA standards and will enable the secure, over the air communications..

Whilst the Caen and Strasburg initiatives precede the Nice project they are both smart card schemes so this makes the carefully planned and well phase implemented Nice NFC project the first of its type in Europe and almost certainly the largest.

Public Transport

Veolia, the public transport operator for the Nice Côte-d'Azur urban area, and ConnecThings, location based information provider, have partnered to transform the travel experience of commuters, locals and visitors.

Again some central government funding has been made available for the development abd delivery of Veolia’s BPass+ facility which offer a method of storing and renewing a transport ticketing on an NFC phone.

Initially c3,000 residents will be able to pay for tram and bus tickets using NFC phones or via a 2D barcode.

In the second phase of this project du for launch in Summer 2010 ConnecThings are equipping around 1,500 bus and tram stops with NFC technology, allowing transport users to download travel information direct to their NFC enabled mobile phone

Cycle Rides / Walking tours

Nice is said to be the first city in the world where NFC technology will be deployed within a city area for tourist information.

An application launched earlier this year, the NFC Tour Guide of the old city centre, allows visitors to the old city to borrow one of 100 Sagem phones from tourist counters or city offices. Those that already own an NFC enabled mobile are also able to access the service via that handset Alternatively

The city have installed RFID tags with InsideContactless NFC chips to Cityzi branded signposts or walls near a number of attractions, such as museums and galleries. Tourists taking the walking tour of the old city access information about each site they visit based on the tags they wave the phones next to.

It works by the mobile phone detecting the NFC tag, and then downloads the site relevant information from the InsideContactless software running on a server, via the NFC tag. that information at each site also recommends the next site the visitor should visit and provides directions. This helps the visitor to get the most from the walking tour and promotes the old city.

There is even a facility for the visitor to leave feedback on the site or the walking tour in that form of text comments or via the old city’s Facebook site.

To generate some revenue and help fund the maintenance and replacement of the handsets, there is the opportunity for local businesses to advertise their services. By restricting the advertising to local businesses Nice is protecting its investment in regeneration and ensuring the sustainability of the scheme.

Parking

Smart Park, from Monext and VinciPark, provide a richer and more convenient parking experience by implementing cashless and contactless payment, season ticket / membership management, loyalty, GPS functionality and other value added services.

Part Two to follow with NFC developments in Air Travel, Culture, Retail, University and more

Consulting Smart Ltd provide specialist consultancy on the design and deployment of smart card and NFC technologies. For more information on how we can help your organisation realise the full benefits please see www.consultingsmart.co.uk or email us at info@consultingsmart.co.uk