STIB/MIVB Open-Loop Contactless Fare Payment

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below · 🔎 Last verified 2026-08-07

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.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means

Since 1 July 2020, riders on Brussels' metro, trams and buses can pay by tapping a contactless bank card, smartphone or watch on the validator — STIB followed London, Paris and Milan rather than pioneering. A tap debits the €2.40 single fare, transfers within 60 minutes are free, and a daily cap stops the meter at €8.50: after four journeys the rest of the day rides free. Adoption has been steady rather than explosive — 35% of single tickets in 2021, 57% by May 2024, 64% by mid-2025, with 65% of taps from physical bank cards and 35% from phones and watches. The channel sells only the standard adult fare: reduced fares, season tickets and multi-operator products still require a MOBIB card, and each passenger needs their own card or device.

Live 📅 since 2020

Outcome🎯 Succeeded

Evidence🏛️ Official

Run bySTIB-MIVB (Société des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles)

Scale🗺️ Regional

FundingSTIB-MIVB (regional public operator)

📊 Impact

STIB counted 40 million contactless journeys between the July 2020 launch and mid-2025 — 13 million of them in the final twelve months, four times the first year's volume — and reports rider satisfaction of 8.4/10 for the channel. All figures are the operator's own.

🎓 Lesson

Open-loop payment serves the occasional rider, not the regular: because a tap can only sell the full single fare, two-thirds of one-way tickets moved contactless while pass holders stayed on MOBIB — the payment technology didn't change the fare structure, it exposed it.

🚲 Mobility Smart ticketing Public transport

Sources

↗ STIB press release (11 Jul 2024) — 'Près de 60% des voyageurs paient sans contact'Trägt: Start 1.7.2020, Adoption 35% (2021) → 47% (2022) → 57% (Mai 2024) der Einzeltickets, ~10 Mio. Transaktionen 2023, Einordnung 'nach London, Paris, Mailand' (Eigenrahmung STIB).

↗ STIB-MIVB — official contactless payment pageTrägt: €2,40 Einzelfahrt, kostenlose Umstiege binnen 60 Minuten, Tagesdeckel €8,50 (ab der fünften Fahrt gratis), eine Karte pro Person, MOBIB für Abos empfohlen.

↗ Bruxelles City News (23 Jul 2025) — 40 million contactless journeysTrägt: 40 Mio. Fahrten seit 2020, 13 Mio. in den letzten 12 Monaten (4× erstes Jahr), 64% der Einzeltickets kontaktlos, Split 65% Bankkarte / 35% Smartphone/Uhr, Zufriedenheit 8,4/10 — Wiedergabe der STIB-Eigenzahlen.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇯🇵 Osaka Metro Open-Loop Contactless Fare Payment · Osaka Open-loop peer: Osaka switched 548 stations in one day in 2024, Brussels rolled out in 2020 — both leave discounted fares on legacy cards. 🇲🇽 Movilidad Integrada: One Fare Card Across Eight Transport Systems · Mexico City Both let bank cards open fare gates; Brussels caps at €8.50/day, Mexico City has no cap and expires stored value — design contrast. 🇧🇪 Brussels Low Emission Zone (ANPR-Enforced LEZ) · Brussels Another verified project from Brussels.

Explore the wider context

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

📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “STIB/MIVB Open-Loop Contactless Fare Payment” — Brussels, Belgium. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/brussels-stib-contactless/ (last verified 2026-08-07). Data: CC BY 4.0.

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

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