THE Australian state of Victoria has signed a seven-year, $A 700m ($US 525m) contract with NTT Data for the continued operation of its myki smart card public transport ticketing system that covers Melbourne and many parts of Victoria.

LUCKNOW Metro Rail Corporation (LMRC) has awarded a Rs 640m ($US 9.6m) contract to a consortium of Datamatics Global Services and Mikroelektronika to provide an automatic fare collection system for the Indian city's first metro line.

TAIPEI Rapid Transit Corporation has awarded a contract to Thales to upgrade the fare collection on the city's metro network as the first step towards a national integrated system.

Denmark is one of the first countries in the world to implement contactless smartcard technology on a national scale. Keith Barrow looks at the challenges and successes of the Rejsekort project.

Santiago Metro has grown steadily over four decades to become South America's longest metro, and further expansion is in the pipeline. Keith Barrow and Ian Thomson-Newman look at how Santiago Metro is investing in new lines and enhancing the existing network to meet the needs of this bustling city.

THE municipal government has voted in favour of introducing a contactless smart card across the BKV network from 2014.

The Sube contactless smart card was due to be introduced last month on all commuter rail, metro and bus routes in the metropolitan area.

REPRESENTATIVES of the organisations responsible for standardising ticketing and smart card operations in Germany (VDV KA), France (AFIMB), and Britain (Itso), along with the Calypso Network Association, and representatives of the International Public Transport Association (UITP) have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a trust scheme for public transport smart cards.

Mobile phone ticketing is projected to expand greatly over the next few years. Kamran Yazdanjoo, director of open payments at Cubic Transportation Systems, considers the advantages of this technology and its impact on passengers using future transit services.

Mumbai is one of the world's largest cities and India's commercial core, but it has trailed behind Delhi in terms of metro development. However, the finishing touches are now being added to the first line and work is progressing rapidly on two more, as Jagdish Kumar explains.