Certification group and library

The STA certification program consists of a Group of Certification Bodies bringing together Certification Bodies authorised to certify compliance of transportation and acceptance media with the CEN technical specification TS 16794 about contactless communication.

The STA Group of Certification Bodies works as a platform to ease mutual recognition between the member certification bodies (and the testing laboratories for product testing) and to limit the costs of those agreements. The main principles of the STA certification programme are the following:

• a Group of Certification Bodies (GCB) gathers Certification Bodies (CB) authorised to certify compliance with
  CEN/TS 16794

• Membership of GCB is open to CBs accredited according to ISO/IEC 17065 against CEN/TS 16794

• Certificates delivered by an ISO/IEC 17065 accredited CB are recognised throughout the EU

The STA certification program has been revised and is now based on the ISO/IEC TS 24192 international standard, published in 2021, which replaces the previous CEN/TS 16794 standard. The ISO/IEC TS 24192 standard is the continuation of the CEN/TS 16794 standard. The ISO technical content is based on the CEN content which has been updated and improved.

We are still in the transition period between Edition 2 and Edition 3 of the certification program. An Edition 2 certification can be requested until January 31st, 2025 for PICC and PCD. From this date, only Edition 3 certification requests will be accepted.

Code of Conduct

Certification Bodies will follow this document in their dealings with Vendors who wish to avail themselves of STA certification.

STA considers it is essential that public authorities and users can be confident in the quality of contactless communication between contactless readers and fare media. Certification is the appropriate means to create trust. Here you will find a short overview of the certification including an explanation of the abbreviations.

The list of Public Transport Products certified according to the STA certification programme - Proximity Integrated Circuit Cards as well as others - can be consulted on the CNA/PayCert website. A list of certified Proximity Integrated Circuit Card (PICC) can be found here.

Certification Procedure

This document describes the actors and actions of the STA certification process for contactless products and their distinctive actions.

This document is the latest version of the technical document mentioned above, and it is available for download here.

The applicable certification documents depend on the chosen certification: Edition 2 or Edition 3.

This document contains the Implementation Conformance Statement (ICS) for PT Readers being submitted for STA Contactless Interface Certification for Public Transport Products and is intended for Vendors submitting a PT reader for certification.

This document is the latest version of the technical document mentioned above, and it is available for download here.

The purpose of this document is to define the process for validating the Test Tools of Applicant Laboratories as part of the Smart Ticketing Alliance Certification program for contactless communication between fare media and ticketing equipment.