Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS) announced the launch of its innovative Invisible Tickets solution, built in partnership with ING Bank, to help railways and public transport operators worldwide transform the commuting experience.
Invisible Tickets is a next-gen ticketing and payments solution that allows commuters to use their mobile phone to travel on any mode of transportation without the need to carry any additional card. The platform automatically detects user journeys in real time with mobile sensors and GPS, and on arrival at the destination, calculates the cost of the end-to-end journey and debits the amount from the user’s designated account.
The system uses a proprietary technology to detect if the user switches to other modes of transport during the journey, bringing different modes of transportation under a unified mobility platform to deliver a seamless and frictionless experience to commuters. The plug-and-play solution can be easily integrated with the existing infrastructure of public transport operators.
Invisible Tickets was initially built within ING. As its innovation partner, TCS collaborated with ING to shape and develop Invisible Tickets, leveraging expertise from TCS Innovation Labs and COIN™, its co-innovation ecosystem of start-ups and academic partners, for rapid experimentation and validation of the technology. ING and TCS successfully completed a pilot with one of the largest public transport operators in Benelux. After that, ING decided that the best way to scale the solution was to spin it out to TCS.
“Leveraging its deep cross-domain knowledge and digital expertise, TCS has focused on innovation at the intersection of industries that can transform the experience for consumers. Invisible Ticket is a great example of the magical alchemy that can happen when two like-minded organizations and long-standing partners get together to innovate. We are excited to take this innovative solution, built in partnership with ING, to other markets and deliver the same frictionless experience to commuters across the world,” said Hemakiran Gupta, Head, Banking, Financial Services & Insurance - Continental Europe, TCS.
Jeroen Plag, Global Head of Strategy & Innovation, ING, said: “After spinning out Stemly, Pyctor, SparQ and Loan Optics from ING, Invisible Tickets has been another innovation success story for ING. TCS is the perfect partner to bring Invisible Tickets to market and to get it implemented to railways and public transport operators worldwide. It makes travel hassle-free and improves customer experience.”