Transport ticketing payments: online, at the counter and on board.
Every seat, sold.
Passengers buy where they are: on the site, at the counter, at the gate, or on board. Same fares, same settlement, same reporting — and a card that still works when the connection does not.
- Routes on the network we serve
- 700+
- Channels on one contract
- 3
- Settlement and reconciliation
- 1
Filmed on location with Rede Expressos. The overlay illustrates the three channels described on this page.
Lisboa to Porto.
Sold three different ways, settled once.
The same service, the same fare, the same reconciliation — whether the seat was bought on the site three weeks ago, at the counter this morning, or from the driver as the doors closed.
- Departs
- 08:30
- Arrives
- 11:45
- Seats sold
- 3
- Online −21d
Three weeks out
Bought on the site with a card and a wallet. Routed for approval like any other e-commerce payment.
- Counter −2h
This morning
Attended sale at Sete Rios. Same fare logic as the site, so the ticket settles identically.
- Onboard 0m
As the doors closed
Sold by the driver on a handheld. Captured offline through the tunnel and reconciled on reconnect.
- Online
- Counter
- Onboard
Illustrative simulation of one service. Route, times and identifiers are generated for this page; the channel behaviour and settlement model mirror production.
Sell the seat
wherever the passenger is standing.
Most operators run web, counter and onboard as three separate systems with three reconciliations. They do not have to be.
- Online Web checkout
Web and mobile checkout
Cards, wallets and local methods with the routing that keeps approval rates high on cross-border and last-minute purchases.
- Counter Attended
Station and agent terminals
Attended sale at the desk with the same fare logic as the site, so a ticket bought at a window settles identically to one bought online.
- Onboard On the move
Handheld and SoftPOS
Sell and validate on the vehicle. Payments captured offline when coverage drops and reconciled automatically once the signal returns.
A tunnel is not
a failed payment.
Between Lisboa and Porto a vehicle loses coverage repeatedly. Designing for that is not a resilience feature — it is the normal operating condition of selling on a moving vehicle.
- 14:02
Coverage lost
OfflineThe vehicle enters a tunnel. The terminal keeps accepting cards.
Local queue - 14:03
Sale captured offline
OfflineTwo tickets sold. Both queue locally with a deterministic key.
Local queue - 14:07
Still no signal
OfflineA third sale joins the queue. Nothing is lost and nothing is retried yet.
Local queue - 14:11
Coverage returns
OnlineThe queue drains in order. Three captures, three tickets — never four.
Settled
The deterministic queue is the part that matters. A returning signal must not produce a second charge for a passenger who already has a ticket.
Illustrative simulation of a coverage gap. Times and identifiers are generated for this page; the queueing and reconciliation behaviour mirror production.
Kiosks and gates,
on the same platform.
Unattended sale is where fragmented stacks usually break: a separate device, a separate merchant account, a separate reporting stream nobody reconciles. It does not have to be a separate anything.
- 01
Self-service kiosk
Sells and prints without staff, on the same fare logic and the same settlement as the counter.
- 02
Gate validation
Validates a ticket bought through any channel, because the payment record is one record.
- 03
One reporting stream
Kiosk sales appear beside counter and onboard sales, per route and per device — not in a separate export.
Rated for the vehicle,
not the countertop.
A terminal on a coach spends its life mounted, vibrating, and running a full shift away from power. That is a different specification from a device that sits on a bar.
- PAX A920
Rawhide
5.5" HD touch · AC + battery backup · 4G / Wi-Fi / BT
Counter · station desk
- PAX A77
Renegade
5" HD touch · 9h battery · 4G / Wi-Fi / BT
Onboard · conductor · platform
A tunnel is not
a failed payment.
Transport runs where connectivity does not. Offline capture is not a degraded mode bolted on afterwards — it is how onboard sale is designed to work.
- Cards accepted with no live connection, reconciled on reconnect
- Deterministic queueing — no duplicate captures when the signal returns
- Same settlement and reporting as online sales, not a separate ledger
- Terminals rated for vehicle mounting and all-day shifts
Three systems selling
the same seat.
Most operators run web, counter and onboard as separate stacks bought at different times for different reasons. Each one settles somewhere else, reports differently, and produces a number that never quite agrees with the other two.
- 01
Reconciliation is the tax you pay for three systems
Every channel that settles separately is a set of figures somebody has to align by hand at month end — and a discrepancy nobody can explain without opening three dashboards. That work is invisible on any invoice, which is exactly why it never gets costed. One settlement is not a convenience; it is the removal of a recurring job.
- 02
Connectivity is a route characteristic, not an incident
Transport operates through tunnels, across rural stretches and inside vehicles moving at speed. Treating a lost signal as an outage means designing for a condition that occurs on every journey. Offline capture is not a fallback mode — it is the normal operating state for onboard sale, and the deterministic queue is what stops a returning signal producing a second charge.
- 03
The refund is where the seams show
A passenger who bought online and needs a refund at the counter will discover, in about four seconds, whether your channels share a payment record or merely coexist. Nothing exposes a fragmented stack faster than a customer standing at a desk while somebody explains that the ticket was bought on a different system.
- 04
Peak is a platform problem, not a terminal problem
A holiday getaway or a commuter surge is throughput, and throughput belongs upstream where it can be absorbed. When capacity is handled at the platform rather than the device, a driver's handheld is unaffected by whatever the web channel is doing — because it was never queuing behind it.
Three systems means three reconciliations and three sets of numbers that never quite agree.
One platform across web, counter and onboard is not a consolidation project for its own sake. It is what makes a ticket refundable anywhere, a signal drop survivable, and a month-end close something that finishes on the first attempt.
Transport, answered.
Can we sell onboard without a live connection?
Yes. Onboard terminals capture card payments offline and queue them locally, then reconcile automatically once coverage returns. The queue is deterministic, so a journey through a long tunnel or a rural stretch produces exactly one capture per sale — not a duplicate when the signal comes back.
Do online and counter sales settle together?
Yes. Web checkout, station terminals and onboard devices all settle into the same account with one reconciliation, itemised per channel, per route and per device. That is usually the reason operators consolidate: three systems means three reconciliations and three sets of numbers that never quite agree.
How do refunds and cancellations work across channels?
A ticket bought online can be refunded at the counter, and one bought onboard can be refunded online, because the payment record is the same record everywhere. Refunds follow the original payment method automatically, including to a card that has since been reissued where a network token exists.
Can we handle peak-hour surges?
Capacity is the platform's, not the terminal's — a commuter peak or a holiday weekend is a routing and throughput question we handle upstream. Onboard devices are unaffected by peak load on the web channel, because they are not queuing behind it.
What about unattended sale — kiosks and gates?
Supported on the same platform. Unattended terminals sell and validate without staff, with the same fare logic and the same settlement, which is what keeps a kiosk sale from becoming a separate reporting stream nobody reconciles.
Show us a route.
Bring one line — its channels, its peaks and its connectivity black spots — and we will show you how the sale works end to end.