1001 Smart Cities
🇪🇸 Madrid

EMT Madrid Real-Time Bus, Open Data & Contactless Payment

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

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 · What “source-checked” means

Madrid's municipal bus operator EMT runs the city's public-transport digital layer: an app that shows real-time bus arrivals from GPS-tracked fleet telemetry, plus an open-data REST API (MobilityLabs) that feeds third-party apps. Since February 2019 riders can tap a contactless bank card or phone to pay directly on buses; EMT says it was among the first transport operators worldwide to offer post-pay contactless across its network. A separate EMT MaaS app, Madrid Mobility 360 (launched 2020), bundles bus, metro, bike, scooter, taxi and parking into one planner and payment, though adoption has stayed modest.

Live 📅 since 2019
Outcome🔄 Ongoing
Evidence🏛️ Officialgrades the sourcing — this entry states no impact figure
what does this mean?The strongest source is the operator's or the city's own reporting — an official report, dataset or press release. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byEMT Madrid
Scale🏙️ City-wide
🚲 MobilityPublic transportOpen dataSmart ticketing

Sources

↗ EMT MobilityLabs / EMT Open Data PortalOperator's open-data platform: documented real-time REST API for arrivals, routes and waiting times; also datos.emtmadrid.es.
↗ EMT Madrid — contactless payment press release (Feb 2019)Official announcement of post-pay contactless bank-card/mobile payment across EMT services; source of the 'first worldwide' claim (operator-attributed).
↗ OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation — Madrid Mobility 360MaaS app operated by EMT, launched 2020; integrates public transport, shared bikes/scooters/cars, taxi and parking; ~24k downloads / 10k users by 2021.
↗ Tomorrow.City — Madrid Mobility 360, EMT's MaaS solutionTrade coverage of the MaaS app's route planner (MRoute), payment layer (MPass) and integrated modes.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇪🇸 BiciMAD Electric Bike-Share · Madrid Same operator: EMT Madrid runs both the city buses (real-time data, contactless, Mobility 360 app) and the BiciMAD e-bike fleet. 🇸🇬 SimplyGo Account-Based Transit Ticketing · Singapore Contactless transit fares from 2019: EMT Madrid added bank-card tap on buses the same year Singapore launched account-based SimplyGo. 🇬🇧 Oyster & Contactless Fare Payment · London EMT Madrid added contactless bank-card payment in 2019, following the open-loop model London's Oyster/contactless set from 2003/2014.

Explore the wider context

🔑 Your Smart City Is Owned by Someone Else🚌 Public transport guide🏙️ Madrid city profile🚲 Mobility projects📖 Bus rapid transit (BRT)📖 E-ticketing📖 Fare capping
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “EMT Madrid Real-Time Bus, Open Data & Contactless Payment” — Madrid, Spain. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/madrid-emt-smart-mobility/ (last verified 2026-07-25). Data: CC BY 4.0.

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

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