The project has been initiated by TopSolutions, the specialist in mobile applications in Portugal in cooperation with Telefonica Moviles, the leading network operator in Spain and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, a multinational financial services group.

Malaga is the first Spanish city to offer people the chance to pay their bus fare with their mobile phone. Passengers will be able to pay for a single ticket or even top up their season tickets simply by using their mobile phone.

Using the Mobipay payment system, travelers can buy bus tickets and receive them as unique 2D codes (Data Matrix) via one text message (SMS) on their mobile phone. The ticket price is charged to the phone bill or deducted from the pre-paid phone card. The code displayed on the mobile phone screen has to be presented to the EXIO™ on the bus, which then uses GPRS to check off the ticket as coordinated by a centralized system of ticket management developed by Telefónica. Once validated, the EXIO™ scanner prints out a ticket confirmation and beeps to confirm validation.