Stockholm implements a new public transport ticketing system

The Swedish capital Stockholm is implementing a new public transport ticketing system that will make it easier to choose and pay for public transport trips.

Digitalisation of public transport services is a top priority for Stockholm. In an interview with Intelligent Transport, the head of Stockholm’s public transport company Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL), Kirster Dackland, explained how the new ticketing system works. The three areas on which SL will focus are traffic information, data analysis and ticketing. “Naturally, these three are all linked. You need to have all of them to develop the features that your customers require”, Dackland said.

SL is aiming to build a system that is easy to understand, easy to use and which provides users with multiple ways to buy tickets. To that end, contactless payments will be enabled, and a new transport card will be introduced on the model of bank cards. The old ticketing system will be phased out by 2022. In the meantime, SL will monitor customer uptake of the services that are run on the new ticketing system. The objective is that passengers will be able to buy their tickets, manage their tickets and plan their trips all from their smartphone.

Although discussions with an e-scooter company about the integration of e-scooter trips in the platform were not successful, the system already lets passengers travel by bus, train, commuter train and metro with fixed fares.

With the integration and digitalisation of ticketing services, the city of Stockholm hopes to make public transport more appealing to residents that still prefer to drive their car. According to Dackland, “cities everywhere are facing very similar changes with their own kind of intricacies and subtleties. Every major city faces these challenges, and we each have to go about solving them in our own way.”