Author here for all your NFC chip questions :-)
Could someone just use an nfc enabled phone to get it to act as a ticket?
Layer 3 and down yes, 4 and up depends
The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
91–100 of 525 posts
Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
#92The NFC chip I want still doesn't exist: a CPU and flash I can write a program for, directly, no VMs, no Java, without an NDA'd datasheet. These exist, but they're all behind NDAs and you're not allowed to have them. They're used for e.g. EMV.
Is there a problem with the TI NFC chips? They all seem to be purchasable and have available datasheets.
Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
#93Comparing Montreal subway with Vancouver's skytrain: - Montreals subway stations have this gritty, distinctively french atmosphere i loved it. - Vancouvers above/below stations have no soul, distinctively anglo but above ground ones i liked. - Montreal train cars use rubber wheels to my shock! Extremely loud. - Vancouver train cars use some sort of electric system which im not familiar with ( have a few variants (new…
>Montreal subway does not cover the entire region like Vancouver's skytrain. It's not supposed to. The new REM train network (a few stations already in use) will cover the region. By 2027. Maybe. REM will also go to YUL. PS. Fun fact, REM is also driver-less just like the Skytrain.
Strangely enough, I used the ticket in the article for the REM train (from Du Quartier, where I was staying).
Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
#94All Moscow public transport powered by these chips (actually it was, nowadays the chips we use are clones, made in Russia itself) - trains, metro and buses.
For a few years now, you may usually do a contactless card payment - just tap your bank (debit or credit) card. The fare is often higher but so is convenience. Back around 2010 I remember reading these accusations that significant part of revenue went directly to Mifare for the massive number of chips. And for single rides, some of Metro systems still use these steampunk brass tokens. Sometimes, less authentic plasti…
every single transportation system that uses disposable nfc are definitely making a ton of money for the vendor.
and every transportation system that pretends to run as a profit center and not a cost center also makes ton of money for the vendors.
Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
For a few years now, you may usually do a contactless card payment - just tap your bank (debit or credit) card. The fare is often higher but so is convenience. Back around 2010 I remember reading these accusations that significant part of revenue went directly to Mifare for the massive number of chips. And for single rides, some of Metro systems still use these steampunk brass tokens. Sometimes, less authentic plasti…
every single transportation system that uses disposable nfc are definitely making a ton of money for the vendor. and every transportation system that pretends to run as a profit center and not a cost center also makes ton of money for the vendors.
Building roads and selling cars, though, also makes an awful lot of money for the vendors.
Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
#96Author here for all your NFC chip questions :-)
Thanks for the write-up.
How does this fit into the broader NFC ecosystem? What do other big metro systems like Omny, Clipper, Smartrip etc use? Apple and Google seem to implement some NFC protocols in their devices but in a much more programmable way, how does that work? Is the protocol used in credit cards related at all? And how do these relate to Felica, the system used everywhere in Japan (which was in the news for a while because the factory where they made the chips burned down and they had a chip shortage - giving Apple an opening to move into the market with iPhone NFC)?
Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
#97The NFC chip I want still doesn't exist: a CPU and flash I can write a program for, directly, no VMs, no Java, without an NDA'd datasheet. These exist, but they're all behind NDAs and you're not allowed to have them. They're used for e.g. EMV.
I saw an NFC chip that has 512 bytes of eeprom. Talks to a micro via I2C and has an interrupt that can be used to wake it up.
I think it's a M24LR04E.
Costs like $0.50.
I think these could be useful for devices where you have a limited amount of data you want to read or transfer. Like why have bluetooth and all the crap that entails when all you want to do is configure a device once.
Advantage of a separate IC is you can use it with whatever microcontroller development stack you have working.
Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
#98This is fascinating. We were just in Europe where we experienced these tickets for the first time. I had trouble with them; I was trying to figure out how to scan them because it never occurred to me that they might contain an NFC chip. My wife, on the other hand, who is not at all technical, took it for granted that you would tap them and immediately figured it out intuitively.
I have found the same thing with my wife. I'm a technical person, but I'm extremely bad with tools and such, including the ticket thing. If no one shows me how to use it I'll probably figure out a way to insert it somewhere. My wife won't have any problem with this and other small tools.
The same thing with IKEA: I always rely on the manual and just blindly follow the instructions, and gets very frustrated if the instructions miss one step.
Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
#99Author here for all your NFC chip questions :-)
That was a god read, thank you.
Do you have any insight into the economics of this in general compared to other disposable solutions. Are manufacturing old school magnetic stripe tickets, or just optical scanning/barcodes a lot cheaper?
I imagine magnetic stripes have a higher failure to read rate at the turnstile causing issues, while both them and optical scanning requires the ticket to be inserted into the machine, adding complexity and moving parts.
Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like 99% of people would not benefit from single use public transportation tickets. Even if you are a tourist, if you use public transportation once, there is a high likelihood you will use it multiple more times, in which case it makes sense to get a regular card. Most systems let you return the card and get the deposit back if you'd like. Personally I collect the cards instead because I have a tendency to re…
I don't know how many times I've been in a city for a single day, or part of one, and have zero interest in spending precious minutes finding, buying, and returning a card. Just let me pay with coins, or a credit card in seconds, with no return work.
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