Brighton pilot brings concession travel into the contactless ecosystem

A ticketing pilot in Brighton is demonstrating how prepaid and concessionary transit passes can be integrated into contactless “tap-and-go” systems using digital wallets.

Passengers on buses operated by Go-Ahead Group’s Brighton & Hove network can now purchase prepaid passes directly in Google Wallet and use them by tapping their phone when boarding. The initiative, developed in partnership with Littlepay and Google, links travel rights directly to the passenger’s wallet.

While contactless bank card payments have become widely adopted across urban transport networks, they typically work best for pay-as-you-go fares. Supporting prepaid passes, concessionary fares or discounted products often requires separate cards, mobile apps or QR codes.

The Brighton deployment introduces Littlepay’s Card As Authority to Travel (CAATT) model for prepaid passes, allowing travel entitlements to be linked directly to a passenger’s payment credential.

“From an authority perspective, Card as Authority to Travel significantly simplifies the fare collection ecosystem,” Sarah McLaughlin, Senior Business Development Manager at Littlepay, told Cities Today.

“Traditional smartcard programmes require issuing, managing and supporting proprietary media, which involves costs related to card production, distribution, replacement and customer support. Mobile ticketing apps reduce some of those costs but still require passengers to download, register and manage a separate application.”

Under the CAATT model, a passenger’s bank card or digital wallet becomes the travel token itself removing the need for separate cards or QR codes and allows passengers to tap their device when boarding.

“For transport authorities, this means lower operational overheads, reduced reliance on physical media, and a more streamlined passenger experience,” she added.

The initiative builds on earlier collaboration between the partners around digital wallet integration. Go-Ahead previously rolled out Google Transit Insights across its UK network, enabling passengers to view journey history and track pay-as-you-go spending directly within Google Wallet.

“That project demonstrated the value of integrating transit payments with the digital wallet ecosystems passengers already use every day,” McLaughlin said. “Building on that foundation, enabling prepaid passes in Google Wallet was a natural next step.”

Because the model operates within account-based ticketing systems already used for contactless payments, it can also support more flexible fare policies.

“Operationally, this approach integrates well with existing open-loop fare collection systems, which many cities are already deploying for contactless payments,” McLaughlin said. “This means the same infrastructure could support concessionary travel entitlements, discounted products, or integrated multimodal fares across bus, tram or rail networks.”

“For cities, that flexibility is important,” McLaughlin added. “It enables them to evolve fare policy over time without needing to replace hardware or issue new cards, which makes it easier to support integrated mobility and multi-operator travel.”

Images: Littlepay