The key success factor for mobility is reducing the threshold for usage. Whether hopping on an e-scooter, renting a bike, taking public transport, or booking an Uber via an app, users expect seamlessness at every step of their journey. Yet there's a common oversight made by many transport service providers: treating payment systems as an afterthought. By not including Payment in the service design, the service provider introduces unnecessary friction, creating deal-breakers on first use.

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We’re Making the Experience Too Hard

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Customers face various challenges that make their mobility experience less convenient. The most apparent issue is downloading a dedicated app and enrolling a payment method for each mobility service. Suppose you use multiple mobility services like bus, scooter, or shared car. It will be a chaos of apps, each with a unique payment wallet running on your phone. Another example is the time-consuming and complex service registration process, which often includes uploading identity documents and providing sensitive information. All these challenges block any spontaneous use of the mobility service.

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Frictionless Payment for Urban Mobility

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Sustainable, environmentally friendly mobility is essential to keep cities livable. Clogging, traffic jams and pollution are challenges in our cities, and urban planning seeks tools to promote shared and public mobility over the automobile. Every urban location invests in public transport, MaaS (Mobility as a Service), and mobility hubs but struggles with getting car owners out of their vehicles, onto the bus, or on their bikes. The solution is not just about organising frequent operation schedules, making the city bike-friendly or putting many scooters on the pavement. However, it will help - it's also about offering frictionless payment services that lower the threshold for using the mobility service.

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Omnichannel Payment promotes re-use

Global initiatives show that tap-and-ride solution increases usage. Removing the need to register or offering an automatic registration once you have paid for the first ride boosts the popularity of the mobility service. Payment is the customer's first engagement with a mobility service, and a smooth payment process will motivate the customer to re-use.

Today's technology is available: Open Banking provides cross-platform secure customer identification, Omnichannel payment services connect card-present and card-not-present transactions, and common tokenisation technologies guarantee data privacy. However, the mobility service provider should design frictionless payment as the first step in the customer journey. Payment should be transparent and omnichannel: it needs to be clear what I pay, and I should bothered by how I need to pay.

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Optimising the customer journey

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We will put the traveller in the middle when we shift the focus from movement to transaction. Imagine yourself visiting a city, and this city is demotivated by using cards having car-free city zones and high parking tariffs. It gives way to pedestrians, bikes and buses on every cross-section. You don't want to drive your car there and want to use one of the mobility hubs available. How wonderful would it be to arrive at the Hub, park your car, and select any transport means, such as a bus, tram, metro, bike, or self-driving taxi, by just tapping your payment card or phone? If you had prepared your trip by purchasing and reserving your parking spot and ride the evening before, tap your phone to make your subscription available. No app download, no registration: tap-and-ride. Super customer friendly.

And even better, claiming any wrong transactions is a breath. Due to the omnichannel payment processing, the service desk consolidates cross-channel transaction data into a single source having an overview of where the payment card or phone was used and, if needed, empowers self-service options, such as one-click retrievals, top-ups, and repayments.

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A seamless and user-friendly payment service in shared and public mobility sets the tone for the customer experience. As payment is the first step in any mobility service, it holds the power to give the customer a warm welcome and improve satisfaction with the service. It should be the first thing service providers think about. Frictionless payment for urban mobility is no longer optional—it is essential. 

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@ Vayapay 

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Vayapay offers a SaaS-based omnichannel payment service designed for urban mobility needs. The Vayapay Smart Payment Platform supports diverse payment channels—tap-to-ride, in-app, online, and vending— and seamlessly links the transaction to a known or anonymous traveller's profile.

Founded in the financial industry, Vayapay offers mobility providers unique and innovative features that reduce payment friction, enhance security and optimise the passenger experience.

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