Telecom Italia has struck an agreement with three Italian public transport companies and the SIA Group to develop and trial a mobile ticketing platform, starting later this year.

The operator is working with TPER Transport Passenger Emilia-Romagna, ANM Napoli and START Romagna Telecom Italy on the service which will enable subscribers with NFC-based smartphones to buy and validate tickets on their handsets.

SIA Group supplies infrastructure to financial institutions and has previously developed a hub for NFC-based services.

The mobile ticketing platform will be created by Telecom Italia with a SIA subsidiary called TSP in co-operation with the transport companies.

The platform will also be open to other mobile operators and public transport companies, said Telecom Italia.

The plan is to start the testing phase later in 2013.