After a three-year break, the Dutch rail carrier NS continues to test the possibility of traveling with a bank card. If the trial is successful, this payment method will be used universally along with individual tickets and OV cards.
prehistory
An experiment with travel on NS trains with a bank card was already carried out in 2019. As part of a six-month trial period, passengers could use a debit or credit card to check in for travel between Leiden and The Hague. Now it is planned to include more stations in the experiment and cover more passengers.
Conditions of participation
Testing starts August 29, however, pre-registration will be held from 15 to 22 August at six Dutch stations: Amsterdam Centraal, Rotterdam Centraal, Den Haag Centraal, Utrecht Centraal, 's-Hertogenbosch and Delft.
Benefits of traveling with a bank card
The main goal of the innovation is to make traveling on NS trains easier. “You no longer need to go to the ticket machine to buy a ticket or top up your OV card balance, you can check in immediately and get on the train quickly”, says Ivo Steffens, Commercial Director at NS. Perhaps people who have never traveled by train before will sometimes forego a car because of this added convenience.
Note! Obvious amenities:
- bank card is always at hand;
- you can carry one less card in your wallet;
- Paying for train fares is just as easy and fast as shopping at a supermarket.
Starting August 29, pilot participants will be able to travel by train on all NS routes in the country by registering at the entrance and at the exit using your debit card, credit card, phone or smartwatch to which the payment card is linked. To this end, NS equipped the terminals and gates with new card readers featuring the OV chip card and the contactless payment logo.
Opinions
Representatives of the Rover Travel Association approve of the experiment. “Of course, this is not new. Travel by bank card is introduced everywhere. The railroad plays an important role in this.”, - says the director of the Association Freek Bos.
The threshold for travel is too high for people who rarely travel by train, Bos said. "You need to buy an OV chip cardhe says, or you can buy a separate train ticket, but it takes time”. He hopes that the innovation will lead to a lower threshold for travel by train. “It will make traveling much easier. You can only take your wallet with you on the road”.
Extension
Traveling with a bank card will be in addition to traveling with an OV-card or an online ticket in public transport. It will not replace existing payment methods. By testing registration with a payment card, NS gets an idea of the user experience, such as convenience and clarity.
The test only applies to train journeys. When the possibility of travel with a payment card will be extended to other types of public transport, it is not yet known exactly. In general, credit card travel in public transport in the Netherlands is slower than expected. It was supposed that this would become possible in all types of public transport from the summer of this year, but then the deadlines were postponed until 2023. Then it will be possible to register with a bank card, for example, in buses and trams of the Amsterdam transport company GVB and so on.
Publication Date: 19.08.2022
