The East West Consortium led by Thales, today signed a major contract in The Netherlands for a fully contactless secure integrated fare system. The new smart-card transport system will be the first in the world that is implemented on a national scale and will offer integrated transport capabilities covering all means of public transport. It will allow the Dutch to travel throughout the whole public transport system with one single ticket on all trains, buses, trams, metros and ferries.

The contract, worth more than ¬120m of which ¬85m is earmarked for Thales, was announced at a press conference in Paris 23rd October.
When the system will be in full operation, more than two million passengers per day are expected to use the national transport system. The implementation of the first phase of the project in the Rotterdam area is planned for September 2004.
Thales will provide its smart-card knowledge and experience in the conception and implementation of large-scale, secure and integrated fare collection systems. The experience gained in Hong Kong by Thales subcontractor MTRC ¥Cards Ltd was crucial to winning the contract: they will provide the central back office.
Thales is leading the consortium for the production, installation and test phases, and will supply the systems equipment and software. Accenture will then become the leader for the operational phase, and will integrate the system's technology infrastructure and will operate the back office, which includes clearing and settlement of revenues for the participating transport companies. The Dutch company Vialis Traffic ¥will be responsible for the installation and maintenance.
"We are very excited about this project, the first in Europe having dimensions that exceed typical fare systems implementations," said Jean-Louis Olié, Managing Director of the Transport and Services division of Thales. "We will be able to provide and operate a large-scale, highly modern multi-operator fare system for the Netherlands. This system is built on our state-of-the-art contactless smart-card technology and years of in-depth experience and know-how in transport systems integration."

Trans Link Systems (TLS), an initiative of five major public transport companies in the Netherlands, covers 90% of the public transport market and includes:
· Nederlandse Spoorwegen, the national rail operator
· RET, Rotterdam public transport operator (buses, metros and tramways)
· Connexxion, the national bus and trams operator
· GVB, Amsterdam public transport operator
· HTM, The Hague light train public transport operator.
The new system will incorporate the new generation of Thales equipment: secured metro contactless access gates, automatic vending machines, Point-of-Sales (POS) terminals and contactless validators for buses.
"The seamless integration of all transport means across one country provides immense advantages for the Dutch people who then will be able to travel from one end of the Netherlands to the other using metro, train and busses with just one ticket," said Jeroen Kok, CEO of Trans Link Systems. "The new contactless smart card system will allow transport operators to reduce operating costs, to better manage complex season-ticket schemes and to ensure high passenger throughput. It will also save time for passengers at access gates."
Thales has already won many worldwide contracts in the field of contactless technology, such as in Oslo, Bangkok, Taipei, Singapore, New Delhi, Hong Kong and Paris and is considered as the number 1 in Asia in this field.
The estimated world market for smart-card transport applications is around ¬1,5bn annually with a yearly growth rate of 15%.