Vivebus, the bus network in the city of Chihuahua, Mexico, is set to roll out a 100 percent contactless Xerox ticketing system as part of its modernization strategy.

The system will also be used to manage the 450-vehicle fleet – tracking buses in real time by GPS and offering the ability to adapt capacity in line with demand. "Service quality is a key issue for Chihuahua, where public transport currently accounts for just 15 percent of the 2 million trips made every day," said Bruno Arlaud, solution architect at Xerox Public Transport.

The system will enter service in July 2013 on the new main Bus Rapid Transit line, 20 km long, which crosses this city of 820,000 inhabitants from north to south. The network’s 59 secondary lines will follow suit in October. Users will have a rechargeable prepaid card allowing them to transfer between lines within the hour.

Chihuahua’s ticketing system is financed by Xerox, which will operate it for a period of eight years.