Xerox has launched Seamless Transportation Solution: its next-generation approach to secure ticketless public transport payment by smartphone.

The launch follows a successful nine-month pilot of the technology with the local transport authority Valence Romans Deplacements (VRD) in the city and area of Valence, in south eastern France.

Operators simply install near field communication (NFC) tags provided by Xerox on their transport network.

The user downloads the app onto their NFC-enabled smartphone and registers with Xerox Seamless to activate their account.

To travel they simply tap their smartphone on any Xerox Seamless NFC tag. During the tap the tag creates and stores an encrypted transaction and relays it to the smartphone.

Billing is processed automatically at the end of the month, based on the number of trips completed on the various transport providers.

Xerox Seamless will be available from July 2016 with installation starting in early 2017.