Algiers Multimodal Transport Card

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below · 🔎 Last verified 2026-08-06

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

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In June 2018 AOTU-A, the Algiers urban transport authority, issued a multimodal transport card and a common functional reference, Refoco, so that each operator's ticketing system could work with the others; ETUSA, SETRAM, SNTF, RATP, ETAC and EMA signed the protocol. What runs today is narrower. SETRAM sells a monthly subscription in a monomodal version for the tram and a multimodal version giving access to tram and metro on a physical contactless card. The metro's own pay-per-ride card is a metro-only contactless card. Buses and cable cars remain outside.

Live 📅 since 2018

Outcome📉 Scaled back

Evidence• No measured figure

Run byAOTU-A (Autorité Organisatrice des Transports Urbains d'Alger), with SETRAM, SEMA/Métro El Djazaïr, ETUSA, ETAC and SNTF

Scale🏙️ City-wide

🎓 Lesson

Interoperability agreements are cheap and integration is not. The multimodal card is the one SETRAM product that cannot be renewed by e-payment — it must be collected and recharged at a commercial agency, while the tram-only subscription renews online. Eight years after the standard was signed, the transport minister was still convening the same six operators to launch a single ticket, this time to be built by a startup; the 2018 companion app has left no trace.

🚲 Mobility Smart ticketing Public transport

Sources

↗ Radio Algérienne (public broadcaster, June 2018)Load-bearing for the origin, 25 June 2018: AOTU-A director Yacine Krim and transport minister Abdelghani Zaalane launch a carte de transport multimodale covering bus, metro, tram, train and cable car, together with 'Refoco' (référentiel fonctionnel commun) so that 'le système d'information au niveau de chaque entreprise de transport est désormais capable de fonctionner avec les systèmes d'informations des autres entreprises sans aucune restriction d'accès'. Protocol signed by ETUSA, SETRAM, SNTF, RATP, ETAC and EMA. Also mentions an Android app 'Archidni' for real-time transit information.

↗ SETRAM (operator, product page)Current state on the operator's own site: the monthly subscription (1,200 DA) exists in a monomodal mode for the tram and a multimodal mode giving 'l'accès au tramway ainsi qu'au Métro', the latter on a physical 'carte sans contact' collected at a commercial agency. Monomodal renews 'directement par le E-paiement via notre site'; multimodal renews 'exclusivement dans nos agences commerciales'.

↗ Métro El Djazaïr (operator, product page)The metro's pay-per-ride product: a 'carte sans contact, non personnalisée' costing 300 DA for the card plus 400–1,600 DA of travel units, rechargeable at ticket offices, commercial agencies and vending machines. The page describes metro use only — no tram, bus or cable-car use and no interoperability is claimed.

↗ Algerie Eco (press, December 2024)Currency check, 30 December 2024: the transport minister convenes SEMA, SETRAM, ETAC, ETUSA, SNTF and AOTU-A on a single ticketing system for Algiers to be built by the startup Smart CheckID Technology in three stages — 'l'intégration de la billettique, l'information des passagers et la collecte des recettes' — and presses for launch 'dans les plus brefs délais'. Confirms a unified ticket did not exist at end-2024.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇹🇷 Başkent Kart and Ankara's Two-Tier Fares · Ankara The card exists, the integration does not: Ankara voids transfers on bank cards, Algiers left one operator selling its own subscription. 🇷🇼 Tap&Go Cashless Urban Transit Network · Kigali African transit cards issued outside the fare authority — Kigali's covers every operator, Algiers's protocol never reached them. 🇲🇦 Casa Tramway · Casablanca North African transit ticketing modernised in the same window, both operator-led rather than authority-led.

Explore the wider context

🔑 Your Smart City Is Owned by Someone Else 🎫 Smart ticketing guide 🏙️ Algiers city profile 🚲 Mobility projects 📖 Bus rapid transit (BRT)📖 E-ticketing 📖 Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS)

📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Algiers Multimodal Transport Card” — Algiers, Algeria. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/algiers-multimodal-transport-card/ (last verified 2026-08-06). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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