City service discovery and access with Near Field Communication

Contactless smart cards are currently widely used to discover and access city services including transportation and access control. This paper addresses the challenges faced by city service development when city services are brought into Near Field Communication-enabled mobile phones. From our field work, we identify the requirements for city service discovery and access through the dimensions of the ecosystem, user acceptance, city service providers and technology. We discuss how city services must fit into a larger ecosystem and address possible value chain roles through an example of the city of Oulu. To meet the requirements of the desired city services´, the identification number-based architecture is identified as a possible solution. The benefits of this approach for city service discovery and access are discussed. The constructive technical testing work is also presented to corroborate the technical feasibility of a city service on a mobile phone.