St. Petersburg to launch 'pocket' payment by year-end

At a meeting of the city government on 21 July, Chairman of the Committee for Transport Denis Minkin spoke about plans for digitalizing transport. He mentioned tram autopiloting, biometrics at Pulkovo Airport, interactive screens in transport, and backup geolocation systems in case of loss of satellite signal. Minkin also reported that by the end of the year, the city transport intends to launch a system of contactless fare payment by geolocation.

The «pocket payment» technology is based on Bluetooth: the passenger«s phone identifies a specific carriage, and payment is processed through the app without having to bring the device to a validator. Previously, such a system was tested in trams, and recently it was implemented on the concession tram network Chizhik.