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The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

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Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#171

Post by lxgr »

Sytten wrote: post #108

They are going away soon (TM), the tech is cool but they are impractical. I will be happy to use my credit card or phone. Too many times I have been stuck in 15-20 minutes queues to buy those tickets and you cant refill them with an app... Plus south shore and north shore have they own system it's a mess.

I agree in that they are much more convenient for tourists and occasional users, but when living in a city and taking public transit every day, I actually prefer stored-value cards, as there are still some advantages that arguably make them a better fit for the transit use case:

- Full offline support (i.e. both the reader and payment device don't need network connectivity), making the system more resilient

- Symmetric cryptography and highly optimized transaction flow, making reads more reliable and allowing faster customer flows through transit gates

- Upfront transparency about charges, monthly passes, capping etc. – you immediately see your balance left after tapping.

- No "transaction spam". This is more on my specific transit provider (NYC MTA), but I'm really not a fan of getting an individual credit card charge for every. single. tap. It can't be cheap in terms of fees for the operator either! At least other systems, like TfL in London, aggregate taps over a day, but it's still not great.

Singapore's public transit agency recently attempted to switch from a stored value based model to an exclusively account based one, but had to backpedal quickly due to public outrage about the move.

Ideally, a system supports both payment methods: Open-loop payment cards for infrequent users, and stored-value cards (both physical and in digital wallets) for heavy users and anybody else that prefers them. But realistically, maintaining both is too much of a burden for many transit agencies.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#172

Post by vundercind »

markus_zhang wrote: post #98
justusthane wrote: post #21

This 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 ins…

I’ve never seen them skip a step.

Basically all other flat pack furniture I’ve ever bought has, but none of the dozen or so ikea items I’ve assembled. It’s part of why I only buy flat pack if it’s ikea, now.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#173

Post by n_plus_1_acc »

Reason077 wrote: post #56
kens wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the e-waste aspect either, but realistically, the chip is so minuscule that the amount of waste is trivial compared to almost anything else you might discard. The chip is literally the size of a grain of salt. The other factor is that people who use tickets regularly would use the rechargeable plastic cards, rather than the disposable tickets, so the amount of waste is reduced.

> ”the chip is so minuscule that the amount of waste is trivial” It does add significant costs to the transport system. Single-use NFC cards must cost at least a few cents to produce and dispense, which adds up when you’re talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of rides every day. Even reusable NFC cards are costly in terms of providing all the infrastructure to support them: software, servers, enough top-up…

Do they still issue single use tickets for transfers between the Heathrow Terminals?

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#174

Post by Sytten »

rendx wrote: post #114
Sytten wrote: post #108

They are going away soon (TM), the tech is cool but they are impractical. I will be happy to use my credit card or phone. Too many times I have been stuck in 15-20 minutes queues to buy those tickets and you cant refill them with an app... Plus south shore and north shore have they own system it's a mess.

I dread the privacy implications. No thanks.

What privacy implication? You already buy the NFC with a credit or debit card so if they want to track the card use they can.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#175

Post by lxgr »

Reason077 wrote: post #167
randunel wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a noticeable delay between contactless cards and oysters. Some people I know prefer oyster cards simply because they open the gates faster, in spite of having to top them off all the time. I'm looking forward to not having to choose one trade-off over the other.

It’s noticeable if you’re used to the instant response of Oyster, but we’re talking about a few hundred extra milliseconds. Not something that bothers you once you’re accustomed to it. It’s still fast enough that it will read my Apple Watch before the gate starts to close from the passenger in front of me. One saved trip to an Oyster top-up machine will make up for a lifetime of contactless NFC latency!

Is it not possible to top up a digital Oyster card on an iPhone or Apple Watch via an app or Apple Wallet?

The Japanese transit cards that are supported by Apple Pay have that option, and it's arguably the best of both worlds.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#176

Post by ghaff »

chgs wrote: post #123

Mifare is what’s been used in London’s Oyster cards for 20 years (not the ultralight ones mind), and Hong Kong for even longer. However oyster really is in its way out for most uses. contactless and especially a phone is far more convenient for non season use, and far less wasteful.

I used up the balance of my Oyster card last time I was in London and just started using my credit card. If there's a difference I didn't notice.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#177

Post by Sytten »

mardifoufs wrote: post #158
speed_spread wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can refill them with the Chrono app since last March. No more queues. Can't do nothing about Laval and Longueuil though.

Yeah they added refills but you can't use your phone as an NFC pass yet :(. I've always been curious to know more about why, you'd think if you can refill your Opus card with your phone, to then use it on the terminal, you could just skip the card step entirely but I'm sure it's not that simple!

Yeah I wish I could buy the one way tickets there. I dont have an opus card.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#178

Post by idunnoman1222 »

lbourdages wrote: post #156
ForHackernews wrote: post #122

> a per-chip price of nine cents That still seems expensive for a $3.75 metro fare. 2.4% of the cost of your ride is the chip in the ticket itself? Maybe it's worth it because it lets them eliminate mechanical ticket-reading and unify paper tickets with other NFC payment methods.

These single use tickets are used essentially only by tourists and those who use public transport only on occasion. The vast majority of users will use rechargeable Opus cards [1] that can contain a variety of different fare types (single tickets, monthly tickets, etc). From an operator's point of view it definitely makes sense to only have to maintain one type of reader, even if that means losing a few cents profit…

That’s not true in Montreal if you buy a single ride you get a paper ticket with a magnetic stripe that you feed into a completely different reader.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#179

Post by lxgr »

Sytten wrote: post #174
rendx wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dread the privacy implications. No thanks.

What privacy implication? You already buy the NFC with a credit or debit card so if they want to track the card use they can.

Many of the systems that account/payment card based ticketing is now replacing used to allow cash top-ups for their stored value cards.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#180

Post by amluto »

kens wrote: post #104
teruakohatu wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I couldn't find a nice price breakdown. I'd expect the magnetic stripe tickets to be cheaper to manufacture, but since the NFC tickets cost pennies, there isn't a lot of money to save. I agree with you that magnetic stripes would have a much higher maintenance cost due to the mechanical aspect and the read/write head. Optical scanning seems less likely to work the first time, based on my experience with airplane chec…

I’ve occasionally gotten to watch transit workers open up and service the magnetic stripe card readers in the BART. Those things are complicated. It may well cost less to outright replace a contactless reader module on a fare gate than to service a magnetic stripe ticket machine once. Even an Adafruit PN532 board is only $40.
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