Toulouse: Making multimodal travel easier, one tap at a time

A city built around mobility 

Toulouse is one of France's fastest-growing metropolitan areas, welcoming around 18,000 new residents every year. Over the past two decades, the city has transformed its transport network through investments in metro lines, trams, express buses, park-and-ride facilities and the Téléo cable car. As the network expanded, Tisséo focused on making every journey easier to access. Simplifying how passengers pay for travel became a natural step in delivering a more connected, accessible and multimodal mobility experience. 

At a glance 

Network deployment

• 1,524 bus validators

• 217 metro validators

• 45 park-and-ride validators

• 21 cable car validators

• 12 sales office terminals

Results 

• 1M+ Open Payment transactions in the first four months of network-wide deployment

• 130+ bank card issuing countries processed

• 1,800+ validation devices deployed across the network

Tap, and go

The challenge 

Tisséo already operated a mature ticketing ecosystem supporting one of France's largest multimodal transport networks. The objective was to introduce Open Payment without disrupting existing operations or changing the way the network was managed.

For occasional passengers, visitors and newcomers, purchasing the right ticket can become the first barrier to using public transport. Understanding local fares, finding a ticket machine or downloading an app adds unnecessary complexity before the journey even begins.

Tisséo wanted a solution that simplified access to public transport while integrating seamlessly with its existing ticketing environment.

The solution 

Arrive delivered an independent Open Payment platform fully integrated with Tisséo's existing ecosystem. Passengers can simply tap a contactless bank card or digital wallet on their smartphone or smartwatch to travel across the entire network, including the metro, buses, trams, airport shuttle, Téléo cable car and park-and-ride facilities.

There is no need to purchase a ticket in advance. A single fare applies across the urban network, while the airport shuttle has a dedicated €9 fare. When passengers transfer between the airport shuttle and urban services, the total payment is capped at €9. Validation takes less than a second, providing passengers with a simple and seamless way to access the network. 

Rather than replacing the existing ticketing system, Arrive integrated Open Payment into Tisséo's operational environment, preserving business processes while delivering a simpler passenger experience.

Works across every transport mode

A phased deployment

Open Payment was first introduced on the airport shuttle in July 2022. Starting with a single service allowed Tisséo to validate operational performance and passenger adoption before extending the solution across the wider network.

The service was quickly embraced, representing approximately 35% of validations shortly after launch and more than 40% by the end of 2023.

Following this successful first phase, Open Payment was rolled out across the entire Tisséo network in early 2024. Today, passengers can validate with the same payment credential across every transport mode, creating a consistent travel experience across the entire Tisséo network. The solution also supports journeys involving the airport shuttle, as well as group travel for up to four passengers using a single payment credential. 

Designed to integrate, not replace 

One of the project's key requirements was to introduce Open Payment without affecting the existing ticketing ecosystem.

Arrive's CloudFare® back office was integrated alongside Tisséo's existing infrastructure, enabling the transport authority to manage Open Payment and ticketing through a unified operational environment. The platform supports fare configuration and capping, customer account management, real-time supervision of more than 1,800 field devices, remote software updates and a single customer account across both ticketing and Open Payment.

This approach allowed Tisséo to modernize the passenger experience while maintaining operational continuity across the network.

Results

For Tisséo

• 500,000 Open Payment transactions per month in 2026, generating €1.5 million in monthly revenue 

• Payment cards accepted from more than 130 issuing countries

• A secure, scalable and operationally reliable Open Payment platform

• Reduced reliance on paper tickets through digital proof of travel

• A single operational platform supporting every transport mode

For passengers

• Contactless validation in less than one second

• No ticket purchase before traveling

• No need to understand local fare structures

• Automatic fare calculation and daily fare capping

• One payment experience across metro, bus, tram, airport shuttle, cable car and park-and-ride facilities

• Simple group travel for up to four passengers using a single payment credential

No need to buy a ticket

Supporting a broader mobility strategy

For Toulouse, Open Payment supports a wider ambition: making public transport easier to use across an increasingly multimodal city.

Integrated into an existing ticketing ecosystem and deployed progressively across the network, the solution demonstrates how transport authorities can modernize the passenger experience while preserving operational continuity. As Toulouse continues to grow, every improvement that simplifies access to public transport helps make sustainable mobility a more natural choice for everyday travel.