A new report from Juniper Research has found that one in eight (13%) of NFC mobile phones users in North American and Western European will use their handsets as a metro rail or bus ticket by 2016, compared with less than 1% today.

According to Juniper’s report, NFC mobile ticketing, which enables users to tap their phones against a fare gate to board buses or trains, has “tremendous appeal” for users and transport operators, and will represent more than 50% of all mobile ticketing revenue in 2016. Moreover, mobile ticketing in general is expected to quadruple to 23 billion transactions by 2016.

The report warns, however, that NFC ticketing must be thoroughly tested prior to public launch to ensure that ticketing processing delays do not negate the technology’s speed and convenience.

“NFC mobile ticketing is still in its early stages, but it holds great promise across the entire mobile ticketing market,” said report author David Snow. “Metro ticketing is leading the way as an NFC ticket is a natural evolution from a contactless transport card and can leverage the existing infrastructure.”

Click here to access the report.