From next year, it will be possible to buy metro tickets or take out a Navigo subscription from the Apple Wallet iPhone application. After years of negotiations, sometimes tense, Apple and Île-de-France Mobilités have reached an agreement.
In 2019, the Île-de-France Mobilités region proudly announced its intention to dematerialize transport tickets. At the time, his announcement was marred by numerous technical constraints. Only Samsung smartphones and other Android mobiles equipped with an Orange SIM card were compatible with its technology. We also remember the nervousness of Valérie Pécresse, the president of the region, who called on Apple to quickly fall into line or risk seeing its customers buy Samsung… before itself. take out your iPhone on the subway platform.
This February 17, 2022, Numerama is able to confirm the information from the Parisian that Île-de-France Mobilités and Apple have finally come to an agreement. From 2023, Apple will offer iPhone owners a shopping journey tailored to public transport.
Directly from Apple Wallet
For a long time, Île-de-France Mobilités, which manages public transport in the Ile-de-France, hoped to impose its application on Apple to buy tickets. Finally, it was the Californian brand that prevailed. As in some Asian countries (China, Japan and Hong-Kong) and in some American cities (San Francisco, Washington and Los Angeles), everything will happen from the application Apple Wallet (Cards in French). The software, which provides access to its loyalty cards and Apple Pay, will allow you to create a virtual Navigo pass. We imagine that it will be possible to put money on it to buy single tickets… or to take out a weekly or monthly subscription.
In the past, the reasons for the incompatibility of the Navigo pass with iPhones were also technical. If everything has been settled between the two companies, logic would dictate that the virtual card generated from Apple Wallet also works from the Apple Watch.
Numerama has asked several questions to Île-de-France Mobilités and hopes to quickly have information on the operation of this system. If it takes the same form as in the United States and Asia, it would be a European first. In other cities, such as London, all you have to do is pass your iPhone over the reading terminal. We are then debited on our classic payment card. The arrival of this system in 2023, one year before the Olympics, is good news for Parisian transport, which will appear more modern. Then let’s hope that other French cities are housed in the same boat.
Android served from summer 2022
Numerama also obtained confirmation of the generalization of the dematerialization of metro tickets and the Navigo pass on all Android smartphones, starting this summer. Again, we are waiting for information from Île-de-France Mobilités to tell you more. It seems that the installation of an application is, for once, mandatory.