>> Would make sense for cities to accept each other's monthly transit cards in theory - little loss for the home city, and a nice perk for the pass holder that could increase appeal of that product.
Now that is a world class invention. A damn sight better than Amsterdam or Brussels that have done away with cash on public transport. You are required to pay for an rfid or nfc card in order to get through the barriers. No more complementary tickets with other things.
> Replacement of the Oyster card would be pretty cool, especially for tourists. Assuming they can still calculate the smartest price at the end of the day
It already works as an oyster replacement as it's the same technology for contactless cards. Contactless cards get the same fare caps as oysters
> Being able to pay through cards and phones is super convenient
I was very impressed by Sydney's train between the airport and city that can take assorted contactless payments at the turnstile. None of this figuring out how many zones I need a ticket for or buying a $20 card and only using $9.50.
> […] dedicated card purse-based systems can be better for regular commuters.
I suppose it is a matter of personal or circumstantial preferences so I won't go into that, but through reading this discussion, I have learned that, e.g. the Boston MTBA's CharlieCard, have an expiry date and has to be replaced in person. From the regular commuter's point of view it is a nuisance of epic proportions – to turn up at a bus stop or a station only to find out they are unable to pay because their dedicated card has expired. The commuter is only interested in the act of paying the fare and not in complexities of the local mass transit system's payment network shenanigans.
I also can't help noticing that the wallet (the purse style) making business has taken a hit in recent years due to the rapidly decreasing circulation of cash and the rise of mobile wallets. Many people now leave their homes with their smartphones and keys only. Eventually and inevitably, all cities will embrace either the integration with or adoption of mobile wallets, but that will take a while depending on how well each government funds its local public transport agency.
Theoretically, yes, but most people don't. Most big transit agencies with passes like this have calculated unused values from transit cards as part of their budgets.
> If you use the tickets you pay more, if you don't register your card, good luck when something goes wrong with it(and it will).
Counterpoint: No it won't, necessarily. I've never had an issue with one of these IC cards (edit: in over 10 years of using them). I've lost one, that's it. I've lost more of the paper tickets _inside_ the station than that.
Do you have actual data on the failure rates of IC cards?
> And you can get a yearly subscription, giving you all-inclusive usage of the services for 1€/day, billed monthly.
This kind of thing is key - make it easy to use transit and lower the marginal cost of doing so. Yearly subscriptions are good. London's approach—unify almost all modes under the same payment system with automatically calculated caps and discounts—also works quite well as you don't have to think about buying passes, individual tickets, etc. Just tap and go and the system takes care of it for you.
Not many places in the US have this level of integration yet. For instance, the NYC Ferry, NYC Subway, LIRR, Metro North, PATH, and regional Amtrak service all use disjoint ticketing methods. It'll slowly get integrated over the next decade, but it greatly increases the mental effort needed to hop on transit. Perhaps the closest in the US is the Bay Area's Clipper Card - they managed to shoehorn over a dozen area agencies onto the same payment method - but it's still not quite as good as something like London's Oyster.
Excellent, I've been trying to figure this out; whether I will be able to just jump on/off using my debit (or Oyster) card as I currently do on the over/underground.
Any idea how far out of town this ticketing system will be usable? Will someone in Reading be able to use a contactless card without having to buy a paper ticket?
> It seemed difficult (impossible?) to pay with anything but cash
That's true and it is not convenient for visitors. Local people usually just use public transportation card (magnetic/contact-less smart card) everyday and don't have to pay with cash (you can charge the card with credit card or Alipay). Some station gates also support paying with NFC smartphones (eg. Xiaomi), and I think that's modern :-)
> There's a lot wrong with this article. Do people actually use their phones for transit? I have transit cards from like 10 cities, and transit cards don't run out of batteries.
Yes. In Oslo, Norway at least, it's become preferable for many (most?) people.
I used a transit card until the day I stood there about to catch the bus, and I'd forgotten to renew my monthly ticket. I had the app already, and the bus driver just let me get on the bus and buy a new monthly ticket on the phone there.
Since then I've used the phone.
If you've run out of battery, the bus driver will generally let you on (on the regional buses. inside the city proper they don't check anyway). If there's a control, the inspectors keep a power bank to let you start the phone to show that you have a valid ticket.
I guess what's different from many cities here, is that with all the transportation except regional buses, you don't need to verify a ticket before boarding. They trust people to buy tickets, and just do regular checks to discourage cheaters. Since implementing mobile phone tickets, I think the number of cheaters have gone down a lot.
I suspect that if mobile payment becomes ubiquitous, I may stop bringing my wallet around. There's not a single thing in my wallet I need anymore (I can even access the doors at work with the phone, although I do prefer the card so far), except perhaps ID/drivers license.
> I can't think of a single U.S. city that does this. They're all exact change only or proprietary ticketing systems
MBTA in Boston had the mTicket app for mobile ticketing and payments for years. I live in Boston and use the app regularly. Can't comment on other cities because when I visit for a short trip I typically don't bother installing apps.
Amtrak and most airlines use mobile boarding passes too. Interestingly enough, on my recent trip to Europe I used the mobile boarding pass in Logan airport just like everyone else. But in Frankfurt when I showed my phone to the agent they looked at me like I was from another planet, probably thinking "stipid americans"
And while we're on the subject of transportation, about 5 years ago I visited a bunch of european countries, including my home country in Europe, and at that time the only way to call a cab was via dialing the local phone number, cash only of course. Funny because on that trip heading to the airport in the States was matter of acouple taps in the Uber app.
> Standardizing a fare payment system just does the same for mass transit.
No it doesn't. Japan has a standardized mass transit fare payment system, covering close enough to the entire country, and you can get in on that with a card purchased, and topped up, completely anonymously in cash.
>The metro card in NYC is also pretty outdated, the whole metro system looks terrible but talking strictly about technology even the ticket machines are problematic, touch screens that don't work properly and so on; buying bus ticket in PABT is also a quite bad experience.
The Metrocard is what one would call a hi-rel product, it hasn't been replaced because it works (baring the annoyance of the turnstile readers which one can eventually master and never have an issue). It is being phased out now in favor of NFC and contactless card payments by 2022. It's only really recently that NFC support has become widespread in private industry anyway and most banks have resisted the same on issuing contactless cards due to cost (and little or no retailer support until recently). They are also adding a buyable in cash payment card for those that dont have a phone or credit card for the poorer folks that don't have the luxury (essentially contactless Metrocard).
Touchscreens are another fun animal. The reason many suck is because they are resistive instead of capacitance touch. They can be made far more resilient against damage/vandalism than a capacitive touchscreen of a phone where the agency would go bankrupt repairing them every day. Downside is, resistive screens do really suck.
> Copenhagen (well, Denmark) has two NFC card (Rejsekort) readers at the front of every bus, with more at other doors on busier routes
As an occasional visitor with a day pass, the experience is just the driver yelling at me, and me having to take my gloves out, get the thing and show it to the driver.
> They used to have an NFC card system, but for some reason discontinued it.
Because app is cheaper and they can gather data to sell it or just their own tracking.
Last time I was in malmö, I remember being on a large square trying to get a bus to go to our hotel. And there were like 15 different lanes named with unsorted letters, and by the time we'd found the lane we'd miss the bus. Repeat this like 4 times.
> As in, I go to a tfl ticket machine, touch, put money on, touch again and then I can use the card on the underground. Then I go to Southampton, go to a ticket machine, touch, put money on, touch again, then I can use the card on the Southampton's transit system.
Literally just tried this with the Southampton card in London against a tfl machine. No Dice.
> Magstripes tend to work not so well when you have the ticket in your pocket for a couple days
How very true... SWIPE CARD AGAIN AT THIS TURNSTILE in glowing turqouise-ish dot matrix letters will be forever etched into my brain long after the Metrocard is finally gone.
Like stamps!
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