The Madrid Municipal Transport Company (EMT) said it is piloting a blockchain application for public transport payments. The app has been developed by blockchain certification company Vottun in collaboration with Banco Santander.
Presently, several different businesses offer their services to the EMT. These include taxis, buses, rental cars and Metro, among others. Every traveller needs to be individually registered with each of these services. The blockchain platform aims to unite all transport stakeholders in Madrid under one application.
“The onboarding and validation process of user information will be the same for all the mobility services offered in Madrid through the EMT app,” said Rohan Hall, CEO of Vottun according to Intelligent Transport.
Meanwhile, the EMT also announced a pilot for biometric payments for buses with Santander, Mastercard and payments startup Saffe. The project was introduced during the demonstration day of Madrid in Motion, an EMT initiative to streamline the city’s public transport system.
While EMT did not divulge specific details, the facial recognition payments system might be integrated with Vottun’s blockchain platform to facilitate secure payments.
For enabling biometric payments, Madrid bus users need to download an EMT app and provide payment details along with a picture of themselves. Cameras in buses will scan the face of a traveler and allow identity verification, purchase of a ticket and its payment.
Elsewhere blockchain has been used for transport invoicing. The tax bureau in China’s Shenzhen worked with Tencent Financial Technology to launch a blockchain-based invoicing for subways, taxis and airport shuttles.
Another recent blockchain initiative from Santander was last month’s end-to-end tokenized bond issuance on the public Ethereum blockchain.
