The future is here, but apparently not yet at NYC MTA.
Here is a diatribe that I posted collectively in a couple of messages on netnews in response to a NY Times article on the subject. Thought y'all might want to know, for what it may or may not be worth
I said:
"IMHO This is an example of abject and almost deliberate planned failure of management so as to make sure that a whole bunch of consultant friends' palms can be greased repeatedly while delivering nothing to the
consumer.
PATH has already successfully deployed a perfectly usable smart card system that can be extended to cover both MTA and NJT. But Noooo! They have to individually go a strike dubious deals with their bank friends
to use bank issued tap cards etc. etc. Of course money is spent – banks go laughing to the bank, and MTA and NJT get nothing at the end of it. Why would they not simply take the PATH system without endlessly wasting time and money simply beats me.
After all, Walder the previous MTA boss was the guy that deployed the Oyster Card at TfL in London, a wildly successful fare collection system. but then he I guess got tired of MTA and left for greener pastures. After all he got a bigger pay package, greater freedom to move things forward and I am sure fewer headaches too. So why not?
At least fortunately the MTA guy made it quite clear that they are not going back to tokens in NY. But it will be while before NY MTA is able to leave 20th century behind and move into the 21st century.
Incidentally even Dhaka in Bangladesh has a smart card based fare collection system in its bus network, as does almost every Metro system in the Indian subcontinent, not to mention rest of Asia too.
Sorry it is New York that is broken. Not a problem with the availability of viable and affordable technology."
Responding to a request about how things are done in Moscow relative to New York,
I posted:
"Moscow is way ahead of New York, which of course is a very low bar to be ahead of anyway....
According to the Wikipedia article on Moscow Metro: "In January 2007, Moscow Metro began replacing magnetic cards with contactless disposable tickets based on NXP's MIFARE Ultralight technology. Ultralight tickets are available for a fixed number of trips in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 60-trip denominations (valid for 5 or 45 days from the day of purchase) and as a monthly ticket, only valid for a selected calendar month and limited to 70 trips.
The sale of magnetic cards stopped January 16, 2008 and magnetic cards stopped being accepted in late 2008, making the Moscow metro the world's first major public transport system to run exclusively on a contact-less automatic fare-collection system. . . . .
Since 2006, several banks have issued credit cards which double as ultralight cards and are accepted at turnstiles. The fare is passed to the bank and the payment is withdrawn from the owner's bank account at the end of the calendar month, using a discount rate based on the number of trips that month (for up to 70 trips, the cost of each trip is prorated from current ultralight rates; each additional trip costs 24.14 rubles). Partner banks include the Bank of Moscow, CitiBank, Rosbank, Alfa-Bank and Avangard Bank.
In fall 2010, Moscow Metro and Mobile TeleSystems(MTS) launched a mobile ticketing service using near field communication-enabled SIM cards." So while New York is tinkering around, Moscow has already implemented every technology that New York has considered as possibility."
One interesting thing to note is that the same CitiBank which had difficulty issuing cards in New York is a major player in Moscow's bank card based segment of the electronic fare collection system!
Also worth noting is that the PATH Smartlink uses the same NXP's MIFARE Ultralight technology that is used by the Moscow system.
.... Oh well that is all for random ramblings about fare collection systems this afternoon.
