By Tom Phillips
Moscow Metro is to enable passengers travelling on all the Russian capital’s metro lines to make contactless payments for their fare at station turnstiles using its FacePay biometric ticketing system.
The transport network began testing the system with 1,000 registered passengers on its Line 4 services in August, adding the Solntsevskaya and Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya lines and expanding the pilot group to 7,000 passengers later that month.
A total of four Moscow Metro lines now support FacePay payments, with more than 15,000 passengers currently using the system.
“Facial recognition testing for fare payment is in full swing,” says head of Moscow Department of Transport Maxim Liksutov.
“I have also registered myself, uploaded a photo through the application and as a test went through FacePay several dozen times — there was not a single error.
“The cameras work and the recognition technology itself is reliable. Soon we will connect all the remaining lines, and, as the Moscow mayor said, in October we will make it available on the entire metro.”
