Transport for London shies away from NFC
The 2012 Olympic Games are quickly approaching and the United Kingdom has been working on ways to make the event memorable for the masses of people that will be flocking to the country. NFC technology has been a popular focus for the nation recently, because of the technology’s various uses in marketing, commerce, and information distribution. Transport for London (TfL), a government agency focused on public transportation in the city, had plans to incorporate NFC technology into its ticketing scheme. This plan may have been too ambitious than the agency had previously suspected.
Agency planned to make public transit more efficient through the use of mobile payments
Initially, TfL had plans to develop and NFC network that would be used throughout its transportation system. The technology has proven quite successful in the fields of mobile commerce and marketing, which is one of the reasons it was chosen by the agency. NFC technology was meant to make ticketing for public transportation a simpler process, allowing the large groups of people that will be coming to the city for the Olympic Games to travel without much difficulty.
TfL cites complications with technology as reason behind moving away from NFC
The plan was ambitious, to say the least, and the agency has announced that it will no longer be using NFC technology for the Olympic Games. TfL’s Director of Customer Experience, Shashi Verma, cites the complexities of the technology as the reason that it was not feasible for the agency to use it. Though the agency has a great deal of faith in NFC technology, it does not believe that it can implement the technology for its mobile payment plans at this time. This does not mean that the TfL is abandoning NFC, however.
NFC still a subject of interest for the agency
The agency has announced the launch of a new trial next month through which it will implement its NFC-based plans in phases. The initial phase of this trial will introduce NFC technology to one of London’s largest bus networks. The technology will allow travelers to purchase tickets and find travel information through the use of NFC. Later phases will expand the use of the technology to the other transportation networks that are used in the city.
