Dubai: Cardz Middle East has been selected to spearhead the launch of a Mifare-based bus pass system to students and then the public at large, targeting daily user traffic of 250,000 passengers in the Indian state of Karnataka.

“This is an important project for Cardz Me, and we're excited to be tackling something on this scale,” says Nitin Shabbir, managing director of Cardz Middle East. “We are integrating DigiOn24 Mifare Encoders with Nisca PR5350 high-speed printers, to provide smooth automation and printing.”

The transportation company in charge of the bus pass system is a large, service-oriented public-sector undertaking that owns 6,000 vehicles and carries 250,000 passengers every day. The new bus pass system uses Mifare 1k cards, and a fully colored card personalization with encoding takes only 30 seconds to print. Prior to the Mifare-based system, students would identify themselves with their school or college identity card and would be given concession tickets via a manual ticketing system. The Mifare system was selected in order to increase accountability and speed up the process of dispensing secured bus passes. A personalized card is given to each student. When the card is brought within range of the Electronic Ticketing Machine (ETM), their bus pass is automatically generated. “Cardz Middle East was chosen to provide easy, secure and reliable RFID passes with the help of Radiant Info, Team Nisca and DigiOn24,” says Shabbir. “Our fast, high-quality printers contribute to the overall efficiency of the Mifare process, and to the ultimate objective of smooth and speedy transits,” says Irina Polunina of Team Nisca. “DigiOn24’s wide experience in the ID card market will help Bangalore’s Mifare system get off the ground without any glitches,” says Loc Tran of

DigiOn24. Cardz Middle East has partnered with Radiant Info Tech to implement the Mifare system at ten different locations in Karnatka state; with the facility for data entry and printing provided by Card Tech India (Pvt) Ltd, Bangalore. They are also partnering with Team Nisca, makers of world class identification card printers, and DigiOn24, radio frequency identification (RFID) experts and encoder manufacturers, to provide a custom solution within the given budget. The Nisca PR5350 printer with the DigiOn24 encoder could print and encode a full colored card in 30 seconds in batch print mode, which is a very fast solution. Since the project began, the Nisca Printers have proven their reliability, running 10 hours consecutively every day. So far, even with the volume they are withstanding, there have been no hardware failures reported.

Initially to be introduced only for students, Mifare will be gradually expanded to the general public, with a target of half a million card personalizations every year. Cardz Middle East has developed a custom software system to print and encode the cards, connecting it with an Oracle database. Depending upon the student's requirements, passes will be issued on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis.

"For Team Nisca, this is the major ongoing project in India, letting Indian officials know about the efficiency, reliability and quality of Nisca printers," says Shabbir. "The project will also give Cardz enhanced exposure for our activities in the GCC and the Indian subcontinent."