Transport Ticketing Global 2026

Across the transport sector, open standards, account-based ticketing and digital identity are increasingly well established. Yet in practice, service failures rarely result from the absence of standards. They occur when ticketing, identity and communication operate as disconnected systems, limiting a city’s ability to coordinate decisions or maintain public confidence under pressure. This session explores how cities can move beyond compliance-led implementations towards operational orchestration - aligning ticketing, identity and communication as part of a single decision environment. Drawing on experience from a large European capital operating under sustained disruption, it examines how cities maintain continuity of essential services, make accountable decisions with incomplete information, and communicate clearly when systems are degraded. Participants will gain practical insight into why interoperability challenges are often institutional rather than technical, how expectation management becomes a design constraint, and what it takes to deliver transport services that remain reliable, governable and trusted at street level - not only in architecture diagrams.