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EMT Pilots Facial Recognition and Blockchain Ticketing Project in Madrid

EMT, a public transportation firm in Madrid, has revealed intentions of running two transportation payment pilot projects. The first involves a blockchain-enabled mobility-as-a-service program, whereas the second entails a six-month facial recognition based ticketing project on the city’s buses.

The primary goal of the blockchain project is developing a novel mobility-as-a-service (Maas) platform that can be used across Madrid’s scooter hire, motorcycle rental, electric vehicle charging, bus and taxi, car sharing, subway, and bicycle rental services.

The pilot projects will require travelers to download a mobile app, avail their payment information and take a selfie-style picture with their smartphone’s camera. After this process is done, cameras located in the participating buses will identify the passenger automatically and charge them the relevant fare. Blockchain technology is set to propel this procedure in a single gesture.

Additionally, the public transport payment system across Madrid is projected to be unified using blockchain. This is to be realized through the collaboration between Vottun, a blockchain certification startup, and leading Spanish bank – Banco Santander.

Blockchain’s transformative potential is also being leveraged in different sectors across Spain. Previously reported on Blockchain.News, Spain’s Tarragona port, Autoridad Portuaria de Tarragona, wants to be among the first modern ports to be blockchain-enabled. This approach is being prompted by the port’s initiative to ease complex processes and coordinate the various logistics actors through blockchain and distributed ledger technology.

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Sony Reveals New Blockchain-Based Data Sharing System to Revolutionize the Future for Public Transportation Services

Japanese conglomerate Sony has announced a new successfully developed blockchain system, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) to provide people with data regarding optimal travel routes for using different types of transportation services.

The new blockchain system integrates data and service provision of different forms of transportation, including trains, buses, taxis, car-sharing, and on-demand rental bikes. This system would allow all types of public transportation options and prices to be made available on one platform instead of using existing specific siloed transportation applications.

The MaaS uses Sony’s newly developed Blockchain Common Database to process data from around 7 million users a day, to be able to record, analyze and share their travel history anonymously and the allocation of revenue regarding each type of transportation.

This project appealed to developers to propose blockchain solutions for MaaS development and has become the only successful project chosen from the “Blockchain Challenge Program” by the Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. This significant win makes it the first project to successfully “realize the recording and sharing of large-scale movement history and revenue allocation by using blockchain technology for MaaS.

Centralized vs. decentralized

The Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, as well as many other organizations in Europe, are taking on the challenge to implement measures to the transportation sector, by promoting open data on transportation and decentralized data management.

Previously, Blockchain.News reported that the Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank has also recently made an announcement saying that it aims to become a leader in the development of central bank digital currencies.

However, due to the coronavirus COVID-19 inflation of cases, tracking of movement and tracing social connections have become common in countries that have been successful in lowering the curve. South Korea has been coming up with innovative solutions during its fight with COVID-19, including a “self-health check” app to keep tabs on foreign visitors. The app has been used more than 60,000 times, and the usage rate has recorded over 90 percent as of late March. The tracking of citizens using surveillance-camera footage and smartphone location data has led to the identification of the identity of the patients. Privacy concerns have also surged in the country in concern with the violation of human rights.

Previously, Microsoft filed a patent w02020060606 with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on March 26. The new system proposes using sensors to detect and calculate the amount of energy and time spent on a pre-determined activity, like engaging with an advertisement, and convert that sum into data that can be used by computers to solve computational problems and create new blocks.

Taking blockchain to the next level

The Sony Group revealed that the company is now expanding the application of blockchain technology in other areas, including the development of authentication, sharing of educational data in the field, and the development of digital content rights. The report stated, “Going forward, Sony will continue to explore potential applications for blockchain in various fields with the aim of further popularizing.”

London Lawmaker Urges Government to Ban Crypto Ads on Public Transport System

A London Assembly member from the Green Party, Sian Berry, is pushing for a broad crackdown on advertisements featuring digital currencies on the London Transport System.

While the lawmaker said she is not targeting any specific advert, she said it is unethical for the city’s rail and buses to feature unregulated digital tokens.

As contained in one of her tweets over the weekend, Berry said she would recommend removing these ads to London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan. The legislator said in one of the tweets:

“Like gambling ads, which we have finally got the Mayor to remove, there is no way our public services should be used to advertise these unregulated, risky schemes to Londoners. I asked for a ban in July and I am still pushing,”

In late October, Blockchain.News reported on the aggressive ad campaign launched by Floki Inu, a meme coin named after Elon Musk’s pet dog. The coin aims to rival its predecessors, including Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB). While Floki Inu flooded the London Transport system, it acknowledged in its ad that the token was unregulated in the United Kingdom.

Berry believes this caution is not enough, drawing attention to the anonymous identity of the people behind the project.

“The website promoting Floki Inu coins gives no names of anyone involved,” she said in the tweet.

She also noted that Transport for London (TfL), the public transport regulator, has not made any attempt to do a background check on the digital token to be sure it’s neither a scam nor a pump and dump scheme.

While the TfL said all of the adverts it has accepted on its network have always complied with its policy as well as the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruling, the calls from Sian may stir a new reality that will stump the ad campaign of other intending digital currency projects in the city and country as a whole.