Philadelphia Inquirer: Transit lines seeking smartest 'smart card'

[marmar]

Transit lines seeking smartest 'smart card'
Goodbye tokens, hello plastic. As PATCO tries its own fare system, SEPTA thinks bank cards could work best.
By Paul Nussbaum

Inquirer Staff Writer

Is a "smart card" clever enough to recognize SEPTA and PATCO and NJ Transit?
And are transit agencies smart enough to create automated fare systems that work together?

As public transit authorities move from tokens and tickets to "contactless" cards, two possible futures await riders.

One is a plastic version of the present, where each agency has its own fare card, usable only on its own system. The other future involves mutually acceptable cards, sort of an E-ZPass for transit riders.

Smart cards typically have a computer chip and radio antenna that allow passengers to wave the card at a turnstile and be on their way. The fare is automatically deducted from a preloaded sum or from a bank account.

With widespread interest in smart cards that can work in multiple cities, the fight now is over the best way to do it - bank cards or transit cards. That battle is shaping up to be the transit version of VHS vs. Betamax. Or HD DVD vs. Blu-ray.

Locally, PATCO has gone one way and SEPTA seems headed the other.

SEPTA expects to issue requests for smart-card proposals by mid-March and to award a contract by the end of the year. SEPTA is interested in getting a system that would use a new-generation Visa or MasterCard, making a bus or train ride just another retail transaction.

PATCO, the 14-mile rail line between Center City and South Jersey, introduced its Freedom transit card in November and expects all its stations to be converted to use the card by the end of the month. Its card now works only on its system, but it is designed to be adaptable to others. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_left_story/20080211_Transit_lines_seeking_smartest_smart_card.html

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Tokyo used to have two smart card systems, one for the JR trains and one for

the private trains, but now both will work on either system, as well as on all subways and buses (as of last year some time).

You can travel all over the Tokyo-Yokohama-Chiba area with the same card. It's an area of at least 50 miles by 50 miles, if not more. You can replenish your card at any station, and they never expire.

The Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe area has its own smart card for the private trains and subways, but I haven't been back there since 2006, so I don't know if that region's card is compatible with the JR cards now, too.