erg wins lisbon contract.

ERG to Supply Ticketing System in Lisbon

ERG Group today announced it has been awarded a contract to supply an automated fare collection system for the public transport network of Lisbon, Portugal. The contract is worth approximately euro2.6 million (A$4.2 million) to ERG over its two-year term.

ERG' s partner in the project, Novabase/Octal, is negotiating directly with the transport operator, Carris, and will be responsible for project management, full installation, maintenance, the supply of point-of-sale equipment and ticket vending machines, and software development. ERG will provide the on-bus equipment, consisting of contactless smart card validators, as well as the central computer system and the data communication system to ensure data transfer between buses and the depot via Wireless LAN. The system will use the same smart paper ticket as is currently used in the city of Porto.

The system is expected to be operational by January 2004 with 500,000 smart tickets on issue.

This successful cooperation between ERG and Novabase/Octal follows a previous contract win for the metro transit system of Porto which was the first ticketing system in Europe to use smart paper tickets with an embedded contactless smart chip. This system was implemented in mid-2002.

Norbert Schüwer, Managing Director ERG France, said: "In Portugal, we have previously installed ticketing systems in Sintra, Aveiro and Evora. This is an important contract win as it reinforces ERG's position in Southern Europe. Furthermore, this cooperation with Novabase/Octal may lead to new opportunities."

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