Bilhete Único

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Bilhete Único ("Single Ticket") is the trademark of the São Paulo transportation system SmartCard.

Bilhete único Card
Bilhete único Card

The solution is sponsored by SPTrans (São Paulo Transporte S/A), the city bus transportation authority, a company linked to municipal government, and is now accepted also on the local subway (São Paulo Metro) and on the suburban railways operated by CPTM (Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos).

Due to the 8.5 million cards issued until 2006, and the 15,000 buses and 7,3 million daily voyages on São Paulo bus public transportation (2006), this is probably the 2nd largest smartcard solution of the world, after Hong Kong´s Octopus Card.

The user smartcard uses Philips Mifare contactless technology.

The original technological solution (about 1997) was based on Seul´s solution and provider, but the project was aborted mostly due software problems with the complex Vale Transporte regulation.

Around 2001/2002 the project was restarted by SPTrans, that decided to be the Solution Integrator and Sponsor, and chose to have at least 2 solution providers for every supply, and not to depend on a sole provider like most other cities do.

The SPTrans "Projeto de Bilhetagem Eletrônica", that resulted on the "Bilhete Único", has at least 30 different solution and service providers directly involved to reach the goal.

The solution was a major gain solving the recharge problem: all cards are pre-paid, and recharge cannot be done onboard. Other Brazilian cities failed on create and spread a large recharge network. Due to "win-win" agreements with Electronic Benefits Cards networks and with the National Lottery network, São Paulo has now 3,000+ Recharge Points around city (Mar/2007).

The main responsibles for these solutions were:

The "brains and arms" providers to SPTrans were:

  • Digicon, that made most of the smartcard technical definitions, and reference implementations of hardware and software (validators, HSMs, POS and clearing house)
  • TTC/Engenharia that helped on major business definitions and public licitations.
  • Atech*Tecnologias Críticas that made the deployment coordination and quality assurance.

The TI services providers were:

The cards providers are:

  • Philips, that provides the Mifare 4k chip.
  • Sonsun, that provides the plastic cards and inlay of about 80% of user cards.
  • Gemplus, that provides the other cards.

The providers on "debit network", are:

The providers on "public credit network", are:

  • Caixa Econômica Federal, that provides the "public capture and reseller network", using 700+ of his national lottery point-of-sales in the city.
  • Digicon, that made the POS device, HSMs and security infra-structure.
  • S & V Consultoria, that made the "Cartáo do Estudante" and "Loja Virtual" web

There are also 40 points of recharge on Metro stations and bus terminals.

The providers of "private credit network" or "Rede Complementary", are authorized to provide recharge smartcards are:

  • SmartNet, that provides a private capture network for many voucher and benefits vendors,
  • Rede Ponto-Certo, that provides a private capture network to VB Serviços.
  • and 2 other minor capture networks.

On March 2007, there are 2200+ point of sales on this network on the city.

The customers of "private credit network", authorized to resell "Vale Transporte" are:

Other software and hardware solutions providers are: portals and back-office.

  • Microsoft. Windows desktops on all parts. Windows servers, Bizztalk and MS-SQL on EDI from garages.
  • Oracle, that provides the central SQL database and Dataware House.
  • IBM, that provides RISC servers and AIX on central processors.
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