With SNOWBALL OnBoard™ Transit, Dubai’s citywide nol Card launched in Samsung Wallet as a new mobile issuance and transit service channel. The service reached commercial launch in just 4 months and issued over 60,000 digital cards within the first 3 months — without changing existing validators, fare rules, or AFC back-office systems.
Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) operates one of the world’s largest city-scale mobility networks, spanning metro, buses, tram, marine transport, parking, taxis, and shared mobility services.
At the center of the system is the nol Card — Dubai’s unified transit credential used across the city’s transportation infrastructure.
| METRIC | SCALE |
|---|---|
| Daytime population | 5 million |
| Annual mobility ridership | 802 million |
| Average daily ridership | 2.2 million |
| Mobility coverage | Metro, Bus, Tram, Marine, Taxi, Parking |
Samsung devices already had strong Android market penetration in the UAE. Bringing nol Card into Samsung Wallet created a high-frequency mobile wallet experience tied directly to everyday transportation.
The goal was not simply to add a transit card into a mobile wallet.
Dubai needed the digital nol Card to behave as the same citywide transit credential already operating across its infrastructure — while keeping the underlying AFC system unchanged.
That created four core requirements:
The mobile channel had to become a new issuance and service layer — not a parallel transit system.
SNOWBALL OnBoard™ Transit was selected because the project required more than wallet integration. It required a production-grade mobile transit infrastructure.
OnBoard™ Transit connected:
The platform introduced Samsung Wallet as a new mobile issuance channel while preserving the existing AFC operating model.
Validators, fare logic, payment flows, clearing systems, and transit operations remained unchanged.
SNOWBALL delivered the complete deployment stack, including:
Delivering the full stack as one integrated system reduced cross-system coordination complexity and helped the project reach commercial launch in just 4 months.
In production, OnBoard™ Transit operated as the mobile issuance and lifecycle layer between Samsung Wallet and RTA’s AFC infrastructure.
Commuters could:
Once issued, the digital nol Card behaved like a physical nol Card at existing validators throughout Dubai’s transit network.
Transactions continued flowing through existing payment, clearing, loyalty, and account systems without operational changes.
The same infrastructure also enabled new mobile service capabilities for physical cards.
Using nol Pay, supported Samsung devices could operate as mobile service terminals for:
This allowed commuters to manage both physical and digital transit credentials directly from their phones without requiring station hardware.
RTA’s AFC architecture remained unchanged throughout deployment.
OnBoard™ Transit operated as an independent mobile issuance and lifecycle layer while preserving compatibility with existing validators, transaction processing systems, and clearing infrastructure.
| LEVEL | RESPONSIBILITY | ROLE IN THIS PROJECT |
|---|---|---|
| L0 | Card media | Digital nol Card in Secure Element; physical cards unchanged |
| L1 | Issuance and top-up channels | OnBoard Transit as the mobile issuance layer |
| L2 | Field systems | Existing validators unchanged |
| L3 | Transaction processing | Existing transaction flows preserved |
| L4 | Clearing and accounts | Integrated through existing AFC interfaces |
The principle was straightforward:
For transit operators, the difficult decision is rarely whether to support mobile wallets.
The real challenge is whether mobile becomes:
In Dubai, the answer was the second.
Existing validators, fare rules, and AFC back-office systems remained unchanged throughout deployment.
What changed was the service surface.
nol moved into the phone — turning mobile devices into part of Dubai’s transit infrastructure.
Once that infrastructure exists, the next deployment no longer starts from zero.
