OSPT Alliance Elects Antoine Vilain as New Board President

MUNICH, Dec 17, 2013 (BUSINESS WIRE) — The Open Standard for Public Transport™ Alliance today announced the election of Antoine Vilain as the organization’s next board president. Antoine Vilain is Product Lines Director (Payment and Transport) for the Payment Business Unit at Oberthur Technologies and succeeds Axel Lange of Giesecke and Devrient, whose three-year term has expired. In his capacity as president of the industry organization, Antoine Vilain will oversee the alliance’s continuing growth and promote further acceptance of the CIPURSE™ V2 open security standard for next-generation transit fare collection systems.

“First, I would like to thank Axel Lange for the wonderful job he has done these past three years as board president in building and promoting the OSPT Alliance and the CIPURSE standard. Open standards are a necessary prerequisite for enabling new technologies to be deployed in transit fare collection systems of the future. Under Axel’s leadership, the OSPT Alliance has made significant progress with the CIPURSE open security standard, in the evolution of the specification and in building interest for it in the market,” said Antoine Vilain. “My mission is to continue Axel’s good work and see that the Alliance continues to grow and attract new members to participate in CIPURSE development, and to work with the members to accelerate market acceptance and advance more projects from pilot phase to full deployment.”

According to Antoine Vilain, the open nature of CIPURSE promotes vendor neutrality, cross-vendor system interoperability, lower technology adoption risks, higher quality and improved market responsiveness, all of which result in lower operating costs and greater flexibility for transport system operators.

Designed with a layered, modular architecture and application-specific profiles, the open and secure CIPURSE V2 standard comprises a single, consistent set of specifications for all security, personalization, administration and life-cycle management functions. From inexpensive single-ride or daily paper tickets to rechargeable fixed-count or weekly plastic tickets, to longer-term smart card, or smartphone-based commuter tickets, that can also support loyalty and other applications, the CIPURSE standard can be integrated into a broad range of interoperable transit applications.

Organizations interested in joining the OSPT Alliance can visit the “How to Join” page on the OSPT Alliance website to apply.

OT is a world leader in digital security solutions for the mobility space. OT has always been at the heart of mobility, from the first smart cards to the latest contactless payment technologies which equip millions of smartphones. Present in the Payment, Telecommunications and Identity markets, OT offers end-to-end solutions in the Smart Transactions, Mobile Financial Services, Machine-to-Machine, Digital Identity and Transport & Access Control fields. OT employs over 6, 000 employees worldwide, including 600 R&D people. With more than 50 sales offices across 5 continents and 10 facilities, OT’s international network serves clients in 140 countries. For more information: www.oberthur.com

About the OSPT Alliance

The OSPT Alliance is an international association chartered to define a new open standard for secure transit fare collection solutions. It provides industry education, creates workgroup opportunities and catalyzes the development and adoption of innovative fare collection technologies, applications and services. The OSPT Alliance was founded by leading technology companies, and membership is open to technology providers, transit operators, consultants, solution vendors, government agencies and other stakeholders in the transit ecosystem. For additional information, please visit www.osptalliance.org.