The FirstPartner transit and payments team enjoyed a highly productive few days at Transport Ticketing Global, the world’s largest public transport, smart ticketing and mobility event, held at London’s Olympia on 17–18 March 2026.
This is the first of a series of posts we will be publishing over the coming days exploring some of the key themes emerging from the conference.
How was Transport Ticketing Global 2026?
As ever, the event was the centre of the world’s transit ticketing world for a few days, with 1,500+ attendees listening to a diverse conference programme, highlighting the latest insights and innovations in the world of transit ticketing, urban mobility and fare collection.
The exhibition floor featured over 50 of the world’s leading technology players from across the transit ticketing ecosystem. From technology vendors, systems integrators and global financial powerhouses everything one could wish to see and experience was gathered under one roof.
The conference programme was as extensive as always, with over 150 registered speakers from public transit agencies, leading technology companies and global payment schemes. Hot topics this year included the future of UK rail ticketing, the challenge of fraud and revenue protection, what is the future for contactless ticketing and many others.
What is next for contactless EMV?
Contactless EMV is now firmly established as the long‑term foundation of public transport ticketing, with the next phase about scale, integration and customer trust. Industry leaders are clear: EMV is no longer a pilot technology, but critical national transit infrastructure.
The shift toward multi‑operator and multi‑agency systems is accelerating. Carrie Hotton‑MacDonald, Transit Director at Edmonton Transit Services (Canada), shared how agencies can retain individual fare structures while delivering a single, seamless contactless experience for passengers across multiple individual transit agencies, supported by fare capping and simplified payments.
Across Europe, nationwide EMV deployments are setting the benchmark. Peter van Dijk, CEO of TransLink (NL), highlighted how a blended open and closed‑loop EMV model preserves customer choice while driving revenue growth. His experience shows that EMV innovation does not stop at launch, with ongoing optimisation and new features such as park‑and‑ride discounts and wider mobility integration already underway.
Maintaining customer trust remains central to EMV’s success. Shashi Verma, CTO at Transport for London (UK), reinforced that technology choices are secondary to outcomes. What matters is that EMV consistently delivers the best fare, including automatic fare capping, to meet customer expectations and sustain confidence at scale.
Looking ahead in the UK, Stewart Fox‑Mills, Programme Director at the Fares, Ticketing and Retail Programme (UK), talked to further EMV deployment across rail in England coupled with fares simplification, strengthening the role of contactless as the default way to pay for travel.
