Everywhere in the world, big cities are in turmoil to face the new challenges of public transport and Italy takes part in this process too. Florence has earned the title of the first Italian city embracing contactless technology on city buses, increasingly becoming a smart city. From 18 July in fact, the passengers of ATAF (355 buses) and of the Busitalia Volainbus and The Mall services will be able to use their debit, credit, prepaid or contactless devices to pay for tickets directly on the bus, simply by swiping their credit card (of Mastercard, Maestro, Visa and Vpay enabled circuits) or device to the on-board validator.

On the cashless.fsbusitalia.com portal the passenger, by registering filling in the appropriate form, has the possibility to view the summary of tickets purchased with his credit card and to print the proof of purchase. This is an alternative based on a greater flexibility, which makes Florence an example and model of efficiency, like other major cities, including New York, Rio de Janeiro and Singapore.

In Italy, municipalities  are investing in large, long-term infrastructure projects such as more efficient metro lines and buses, as well as small incremental projects, such as simplifying payments and providing real-time information that has the potential to create significant improvements in the short term by reducing the sore points that consumers experience every day.

The reason for this "forced" change is that users are often frustrated by traditional methods of paying for public transportatios, a factor that leads them to use private cars more frequently. In particular, it is clear that the need for different tickets for different travel modes is a problem, especially in an unknown city: digital payments simplify these dynamics, making the travel experience more enjoyable, faster and more convenient.