The iPhone will finally function as the Navigo card in 2023

Finally! The iPhone and Apple Watch can be used to verify your transportation ticket in 2023 in -le-de-France. ந்தியle-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), the regional authority in charge of transport, and Apple have finally reached an agreement after several. Many years of negotiations.

“We can not give an exact date yet, because it depends on the progress made by Apple in Cupertino. But this time it will definitely happen.”Laurent Probst, Managing Director of Île-de-France Mobilites, announced. Parisian. The agreement is to be voted on today by the IDFM Board of Directors.

A test phase will take place this year with compatible iPhones and Apple watches. These devices replace plastic cards distributed by IDFM, such as the Navigo Pass and the commuter system. By 2024, all transit tickets will be purchased directly through Apple Pay and integrated into the Cards app (ex-Wallet). Parisian. Without having to check the functionality with Touch ID or Face ID, the verification will be done on the gates using the NFC chip of the devices – this is what Apple calls Express mode.

The agreement, concluded between IDFM and Apple, is valid for five years and includes an envelope of a maximum of 5 million euros dedicated to the development of these new services. The stumbling block was the financial conditions of the partnership until then.

Since last year, it has been possible Recharge your Navigo Pass with iPhone At NFC. Removing the card and being able to use your iPhone instead is the next step that many users have been waiting for a long time.

It has been used as an iPhone traffic card in Japan since 2016. Cities in other countries are included In the list (China, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada, Sweden), but not always the same way. In London, for example, a bank card stored on cards is used as a payment method. For Paris and its region, it will be a dematerialized Navigo pass on the map, similar to the Suica or Pasmo cards in Japan.

It was already possible to use an Android smartphone to verify your travels to Île-de-France, but only under very specific conditions. In the middle of the year, All Android smartphones Can be used as a transport card with a new solution used by IDFM (host card emulation, which mimics the cards in the mobile app).