A trip to Nice (France)

Nice is the most advanced European cities in the domain of mobile contactless technology. Since spring 2010, 3,000 users will be able to get NFC (Near Field Communication) mobile phones and test on the Nice Cote d’azur area a bunch of services that will facitate their daily life. The electronic wallet will be used in multiple domains such as public transport, shopping, cultural life,

A dedicated consumer-facing website, Cityzi.fr, has also been put together which explains the services on offer in clear, simple language. To make the offer as easy to understand as possible, these have been grouped under four headings:

• Payments. Consumers who purchase an NFC phone will be able to make payments at any merchant equipped to handle contactless payments.
• Transport. Purchase of transport tickets and access to real-time travel information for all services calling at each bus and tram departure point in the Nice region via 1,500 NFC and 2D barcode-enabled information points being installed across the local transport network. As well as travel information, the information points will also provide access to information services provided by the city council, events listings and the latest news articles from Nice Matin, the region’s daily newspaper.
• Information services. As well as the travel services, additional information services will be available, including an NFC tag-based tour of the old city of Nice.
• Loyalty points. Consumers will be able to collect loyalty points automatically when they use their NFC phone to make a purchase.

The project is run in collaboration with three Mobile Network Operators (Orange, Bouygues Telecom et SFR), industrial partners, public transport players (Veolia Transport), banks, local authorities and with the support of the French “Mobile Contactless Services Forum” launch by Luc Chatel in April 2008.

Thus, Nice will be one of the leading territory in Europe in the usage of this new digital technologies.