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The Pays de la Loire Region is taking over and unifying the ticketing system for its Aléop network

October 22, 2024 2 min read

The fifth most populous region in France, the Pays de la Loire Region, has selected Kuba and La Banque Postale to develop a unified ticketing system for its Aléop public transport network.

Kuba and La Banque Postale announced today that their proposal for implementing a unified ticketing system for public transport in the Pays de la Loire has been selected. They will work with the Region on a phased rollout to be completed by 2026.

Easier payments across a vast network

The Pays de la Loire is made up of five departments, nearly 1,240 municipalities, and seven major urban areas and metropolitan regions. The Region’s public transport network handles 90,000 passenger trips every day, using intercity buses, regional express trains, and maritime connections.

The Pays de la Loire launched a competitive tender with the ambitious plan of creating a unified regional ticketing system using barcodes. This complex project requires multimodal interoperability and allows passengers to book, pay for, validate, and have their tickets inspected using a smartphone.

The solution proposed by Kuba and La Banque Postale includes a ticketing back-office offering modules customised to meet the needs of the Region. This will interface with the Pays de la Loire’s MaaS platform, which supports customer accounts, sales, and barcode ticket issuance. Kuba’s next-generation driver consoles, ticket validators, and automatic ticket machines will complete the solution.

Strength in partnership

Kuba officially partnered with La Banque Postale in 2023, sharing a common vision to enhance regional mobility. Through its subsidiary eZyness, La Banque Postale enables travellers to pay for single tickets and subscriptions via bank cards across various channels (and potentially through open payment).

Integrated with the payment service provider Littlepay, La Banque Postale acts as Kuba’s partner for acquiring and managing omnichannel payment flows, once the best fare is calculated by Kuba’s back office. Their combined expertise in public transport and payments has already secured major projects in regions such as Brittany, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, and Saint-Nazaire. Cities like Dijon, Cherbourg, Besançon, Perpignan, Brest, and the Oise department, have also benefited from their solutions.

Kuba France General Manager, Tarik Dinane, says, “As a French organisation with a significant and growing customer base in France, our partnership with La Banque Postale is vital. It enables us to provide a holistic, user-centric service to major regions.”

Ana Catalina Macaya Vargas, Director of Transaction Banking at La Banque Postale and President of eZyness, adds, “From the payment of a ticket to its use, the traveller is at the centre of our thinking. Whatever the scale of deployment or the number of mobility modes and operators involved, we offer unrivalled ease of payment and simplified journeys from end to end.”

With the introduction of the new ticketing system, the Pays de la Loire joins the ranks of regions worldwide simplifying multimodal mobility with a unified system. Kuba’s clients in France, Belgium, and Italy are among the pioneers, with high adoption rates reflecting strong passenger satisfaction.

Most recently, an account-based ticketing system in Tuscany, launched in partnership with Kuba and Visa, saw 3.5 million contactless payments in its first five months.