Maintaining its place at the forefront of new technology innovations, Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has announced the ‘virtual nol card’ initiative. This new initiative, that is expected to be in place in the final three months of 2020, will offer nol card uses a smoother payment on a host of services including their public transport fares, parking charges and even some shopping at certain outlets and petrol stations.
“We are keen to familiarise the public with this initiative for buying the virtual nol card and saving it in their mobile phones where they can top-up the card directly from their credit cards, which are saved in their phones. The NFC feature has to be enabled in smartphones of riders such that they can use the virtual nol card in paying fares for metro, bus, tram and marine transport services,” said Mohammed Al Khayat, Director of Automated Fare Collection at RTA’s Corporate Technology Support Services Sector.
“RTA is planning to roll out the virtual nol card in the third quarter of 2020. Later on, all the existing nol card functions will be added to the virtual card. Offering this initiative couldn’t have come at a better time as Dubai is heading towards the hosting of a big event, Expo 2020,” added Mohammed Al Khayat. “This initiative will boost the government drive of ranking Dubai as the smartest city in the world, and contribute to realizing a host of RTA’s strategic goals: Smart Dubai, People Happiness and Asset Sustainability (namely green economy and paperless government). Virtual nol is part of Digital nol Strategy 2018-2022 aimed at achieving the smart transformation of payment means and using advanced technologies in transit services.”