London–Thales has been selected by the Norwegian capital of Oslo to develop and deploy a new Central Clearing House system which will go live in 2007. This interoperable system will allow each of the three public transport operators: AS Oslo Sporveier, NSB AS and Stor-Oslo Lokaltrafikk a.s, to be fairly reimbursed for each journey made on its network. The secure payment clearing system supports a single travel smart card which passengers can use to pay for travel on all modes of public transport in Oslo.

The contract is worth more than 3 million euros and is part of a broader program to upgrade Oslo’s public transport fare collection systems. Oslo’s transport network operates on a contactless smart card system. The new clearing house will record every transaction and journey made on the card, and then apportion overall revenue collected in from the three public transport operators. This will ensure that each operator is given accurate reimbursement of revenues. The centralised approach will promote greater investment and efficiency in the transport network, as operators will financially benefit if they increase citizens’ use of public transport through improvements in their network.

In addition to an improved service, citizens will benefit from consistent fare policies and simplified travel. Customers may buy specific individual or multiple journeys that are valid on several operators’ networks or load their smartcard e-purse with funds which can be used on all three participating operators networks. This simplicity is aimed at increasing the use of the public transport network.

The process is highly secure with each transaction authorised from the customer interface up to the Central Clearing House where all transactions are collected and apportioned to the three operators. The entire payment clearing system provides a comprehensive audit trail and is secured by a PKI architecture. In addition, the central clearing house is highly scalable and flexible, enabling future integration with other Norwegian operators.

This latest contract follows on from a project begun in late 2003, in which Thales was selected by AS Oslo Sporveier, one of the Norwegian capital’s main public transport operators, to supply a secure, contactless and multimodal fare collection system for the city’s metro, bus and light rail networks, boats and kiosks. The development of the Central Clearing House system, common to all three operators, is the final implementation that will complete the full integration.

Trond Bjorgan, Managing Director of AS Oslo Sporveier: “The Thales clearing house system meets all our requirements, particularly in the area of interoperability. It is at the core of our transport system, so long-term reliability and dependability are very important. Interoperability between the capital’s urban transport systems is a major project for us and for the city’s inhabitants, and Thales is providing the support we need for this large-scale development.”

About Thales Thales is an international electronics and systems group serving defence, aerospace, security and services markets. The Group employs 60,000 people throughout the world and generated revenues of 10.3 billion euros in 2004.

Thales’ Transport & Energy business line (www.thalesgroup.com/transport) integrates secure systems for customers in the public transport and energy sectors. Its solutions span integrated ticketing and fare collection systems, train supervision and control, motorway toll collection, traffic and vehicle fleet management, public car park systems, telematics and geolocation. It also provides supervision solutions for electricity, oil and gas distribution networks, message-switching systems for air navigation and secure payment solutions, as well as an extensive range of services covering the entire life cycles of its products and systems.

Thales has numerous references in the transport sector, including major contracts in Bangkok, France, Hong Kong, Mexico, Nanjing, the Netherlands, Denmark, New Delhi, Oslo, Singapore, Taiwan, Belgium and the United Kingdom.