Dublin

TOTAL SCORE: 43

Wherever you are in the world, you’ll always find an Irish pub selling Guinness with a customer propping up the bar regaling you with stories about O’Connell Street. But will contactless technology eventually become part of the Dublin myth? Only in the minds of industry insiders who’ve had a little too much of the black stuff. But the city is certainly embracing the technology and it’s a great place to visit, enjoy the craic and witness the technology in action.

Its public transport system is set to use a single pre-paid contactless card for travel on all buses, trains, trams and coaches in the city. Initially, staff are using the technology on a few select services before it is expanded for use by a small number of customers. It will then go live on services provided by transport operators across Dublin. The contactless card is part of Ireland’s Transport 21 project, which aims to deliver world-class transport to citizens by 2015. However, the full rollout of the card has been delayed until the end of 2011, so the 2015 target may also have to be pushed back slightly.

The technology is also gaining traction in the banking/payments sector.  The staff canteen at Ulster Bank’s Dublin office was the location for what was heralded as Ireland’s first contactless card payment scheme in February 2010. Around the same time, the head of Visa UK & Ireland underlined the firm’s commitment to the technology when he briefed the heads of Irish banks about its potential.

Category	Number	Score
Point of sale terminals/readers deployed	11-50	2
Different types of contactless device	1	1
Number of contactless devices	101-500	20
Number of applications	2	2
Total number of service providers involved	5	5
Number of banks in partnership	1	1
Number of operators in partnership	0	0
Number of merchant locations	1-10	1
Transit operators in scheme	4	4
Parking sector	0	0
Vending	0	0
Entertainment sector – football, leisure, congress etc	0	0
Public sector activities – libraries, schools etc	0	0
Smart poster environments in place	0	0
Marketing campaigns rolled out	1	1
Length of time project implemented	2-6 months	2
ROI – future potential	2	2
Green credentials	25	2
Social equality	0	0
Total		43