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French contactless technology vendor Ask has won an order to supply contactless badges for Cyclocity, a self-service bicycle rental business that is planning to start operations in several European cities.
Cyclocity is operated by JCDecaux, a French advertising company, while Ask specializes in contactless payment cards and tickets for transport applications.
Since May 2005, JCDecaux has operated a Cyclocity service in the French city of Lyons using contactless badges from Ask. Cyclocity is also available in Brussels www.cyclocity.be.
JCDecaux is planning to expand Cyclocity to Aix-en-Provence, Mulhouse, Besançon and Paris in France, and to the Spanish city of Seville. It says the Paris service should be available by mid-July, offering over 20,000 bikes for rental.
For the Lyons service, Ask has been supplying contactless paper tickets, a contactless ticket dispensing machine and Cyclocity subscribers’ contactless badges. Subscribers pay an annual fee for a contactless badge, which they wave against a contactless reader in a Cyclocity bike station to unlock a rental bike. Occasional users purchase contactless paper tickets, which they use to unlock rental bikes.
“The Cyclocity badge complies with ISO 14443 B standard, the widest public transport standard for contactless microprocessor cards,” Christophe Peix, Ask France’s Sales Manager, says in a statement. Badges can be requested at a dedicated website, www.velib.paris.fr/, Peix says
