MUNICH, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Open Standard for Public Transport (OSPT™) Alliance today announced the first public availability of the CIPURSE™ open security standard specification, Version 1.0, for reading and evaluation. The OSPT also has extended an invitation to all stakeholders in the public transit ecosystem to participate in the Alliance, and is offering three levels with varying benefit packages.
“We are proud to release this initial version of the CIPURSE standard and begin the process of creating an ecosystem of CIPURSE-certified products for the next generation of more secure, cost-effective, scalable and extensible transit fare collection systems,” said Laurent Cremer, executive director of the OSPT Alliance. “Organizations can now evaluate this specification and then contribute to this ecosystem by becoming an OSPT Alliance member and receiving the necessary implementer’s license to develop their product.”
Full membership in the OSPT Alliance is designed for organizations that plan to develop commercialized CIPURSE products based on this open standard. Full members receive all benefits offered by the OSPT Alliance, which includes an implementation license and software development kit (SDK). The annual fee for full membership is €5000.
Associate membership is open to transit agencies, industry associations involved in transit, and universities and research institutions with an interest in public transportation. There is no fee to join as an associate member.
Organizations interested in obtaining a copy of the specification for evaluation may now download the documentation from the OSPT Alliance website after first agreeing to a royalty-free “click-through” evaluation license. Evaluators have access to the CIPURSE specification and are eligible to purchase a CIPURSE SDK after completing the application.
Applications for evaluation or membership options are available on the OSPT Alliance web site, www.osptalliance.org.
The CIPURSE specification will enable technology suppliers to develop and deliver innovative, more secure and interoperable transit fare collection solutions for cards, stickers, fobs, mobile phones and other consumer devices, as well as infrastructure components. Unlike systems based on proprietary technologies that limit choices, are potentially less secure and cost more to acquire, deploy and maintain, products that conform to the CIPURSE standard will include advanced security technologies, help ensure compatibility with legacy systems, and be available in a broad variety of form factors.
The CIPURSE Standard
The CIPURSE open security standard addresses the need by local and regional transit authorities for future-proof fare collection systems with more advanced security than currently in use. The standard defines an authentication scheme, a secure messaging protocol, four minimum mandatory file types and a minimum mandatory command set to access these file types. It also specifies encryption keys and access conditions. CIPURSE builds upon existing, proven, open standards — the ISO 7816 smart card standard, as well as the 128-bit advanced encryption standard (AES-128) and the ISO/IEC 14443-4 protocol layer — to provide a platform for securing both new and legacy transit fare collection applications, and has the potential to be used within existing application frameworks around the world. At the same time, because it is an open standard, it 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.
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 — Giesecke & Devrient, Infineon Technologies, INSIDE Secure and Oberthur Technologies — 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.