VAS in the future mobility pricing market

Date: Thursday September 17, 2015

Frederic Bruneteau spoke at the IBTTA (International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association) conference in Dublin about opportunities for VAS (Value Added Services) in the mobility pricing market.

Our Managing Director highlighted the importance of two catalysts for a large VAS market to emerge:

  1. Interoperability between toll networks and systems, which is necessary to create a level playing field for developers,
  2. The almost certain emergence of smartphones as a payment system for tolling.

A participant asked how could smartphones develop as a tolling payment system if Apple charges 30% of tolled revenues?

Frederic Bruneteau insisted that apps would be provided for free to the customer by the toll charger using App Stores. Apple and Google would not charge for the transactions processed using the app, the same way they do not charge banks for transactions made by their customers on apps and they do not charge Booking.com for hotels booked through its app.

Indeed the current App Store / Google Play model primarily applies to the initial app download and the in-app purchase (IAP) revenue share only regards content downloads or additional app features.

Download Frederic Bruneteau’s slides: PTOLEMUS-presentation-to-IBTTA-2015

To better understand the mobility pricing, VAS and smartphone tolling opportunities, also: