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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

#451

Post by grishka »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #344
grishka wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the system know that the ticket was already used? The thing with plane and long-distance train tickets is that you buy them for a specific route. So all the checking only needs to be done at your departure station/airport, the code for which is encoded in the ticket, and the rest of the system doesn't need to know anything about it. But you can't do that with city transport. When there aren't multi-use ticke…

The system can just keep track of whether the ticket has already been used before. You don't have to store the information on the ticket itself. You can store the information on a central server, connected to all the gates. The ticket itself just has to encode an ID, and then the central database contains an entry for that ID that is checked by the gate in real time. When the ticket is scanned at a gate, the database…

That server would have to process thousands of requests per second during a rush hour with very little delay. In addition to QR codes just being much more finicky than tapping a card or sticking something into a slot.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#452

Post by ralferoo »

matsimitsu wrote: post #301
sverhagen wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and 4 isn't borne out in my experience To bolster your point, aren't there whole countries where stores and street sales float on top of QR codes?

In China, QR Codes are used for public transport too, and I found them just as fast as NFC readers (and faster than the slow readers used by the NS in The Netherlands)

Until you go to another city and discover that the local bus company has decided that instead of just letting you pay by Wechat pay or Alipay, you need to install their proprietary app to generate the QR code for the bus to scan, at which point the app then just turns it into a Wechat pay or Alipay transaction at the end. No benefit to the user, it just allows the bus company to extract all your PII in the process. Actually, they're not all proprietary apps, but there are several from competing companies, and you have to use whichever one the city has chosen.

Actually, I think part of the reason is that so they know who's on the bus in case it's involved in an accident, because if you buy a ticket from a bus station for a "short distance" (so out of the city, but within about 40km), you also have to provide them with a phone number even though they never call you or send you an SMS using that number.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#453

Post by anamexis »

jasonkester wrote: post #396
a-dub wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC OMNY allows for direct payment from a debit/credit card via NFC at the turnstile. this has privacy issues but i think they're ameliorated if you use a smartphone. i think you can buy a transit payment card if you need one. no paper tickets. cool ephemera but pretty wasteful. would be pretty cool if/when we see a day where provably private cryptocurrency microtransactions allow for both real privacy and the 7 day…

I like London’s version of this. You can just tap your credit card or phone at any station, and it will even stop charging you after you rack up £8 in payments over the course of a day. Just pretends you had bought a day pass in the first place. Really leaves a good impression, knowing that they could have gouged you but chose not to.

New York also does this, except weekly. https://omny.info/fares

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#454

Post by ralferoo »

socksy wrote: post #307
jhugo wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I lived in Shanghai 6 years ago they were trialling QR for the metro. It was really bad, always huge queues with people struggling to get the right angle/illumination/whatever to make it scan. I’ve never seen similar issues with contactless methods and in fact I think SH subsequently moved to them. The amount of data stored seems pretty trivial to scale if necessary.

When I was in Shanghai this year I used a metro QR code via AliPay, and it seemed everyone else did too. There didn't seem to be any issue with scanning them so I guess everyone got used to that. There was however a queue by the security theatre bag scanning device at every single ticket gate.

Interesting, I didn't think you could pay directly via Alipay or Wechat.

Most cities you can use chengchema/dachema mini-apps in Wechat to generate the QR codes, but also all the old smartcards I had from previous trips worked in their various cities (but only work in that city) and usually had slightly cheaper fares than the QR-code ones, which were the same as the cash price to buy a single-use ticket.

But yeah, the bag checking is annoying in China. Shanghai is very relaxed compared to everywhere else - most places you even have to have your water bottle scanned to make sure it is actually water, or else take a sip from it.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#455

Post by lxgr »

inkyoto wrote: post #262
lxgr wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile wallets are not a contradiction to dedicated transit cards, though! Apple Wallet supports transit cards for dozens of transit systems, and most of them have some associated app to allow managing monthly passes or topping up the balance. Arguably, that's the best of both worlds.

Yes, I am in a full agreement on the best of both worlds, with a couple of caveats. Apple Wallet supports neither the Montreal (the subject of this discussion) nor Boston CharlieCard transit cards nor many more. Apple Wallet has promptly shown some transit cards from mainland China, 1x from France, 1x from Hong Kong, 3x from Japan and only 3x (!) from the US (Clipper, SmarTrip and TAP). That is all it supports. Andro…

Definitely – the challenges and cost of maintaining these individual systems should not be underestimated.

But practically, a lot of them are run by a small set of contractors anyway, not any government entity directly. These only need to integrate with wallet providers once; beyond that it's just a matter of contract terms and uploading a few new assets to Apple's and Google's servers. (I believe Apple can even launch new transit cards without an iOS update these days.)

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#456

Post by cavisne »

solarized wrote: post #324

To peoples asking: "Why not just QR codes?" Again it's all about latency. QR codes take longer when you tap them at the gate: opening the app, waiting for the scanner to adjust, connecting to inet. While NFC handle these tasks almost instantly. A big difference in super busy places where queues are a nightmare. Again, this problem wouldn't exist if we can optimize WFH methods. We don't need to solving "physical probl…

I ran into this in France, where the ticket station used QR codes & NFC. The QR code readers are scratched up meaning printed copies without backlight didn’t work. And iPhone opens Apple wallet when you bring it near a NFC reader, hiding the QR code on your screen.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#457

Post by ralferoo »

grishka wrote: post #235
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.

Isn't Mifare in different forms a de-facto standard for NFC subway tickets around the world? St Petersburg uses Mifare Classic (and tokens), Moscow also uses Mifare Classic for the refillable Troika card and Mifare Ultralight for disposable ones, Dubai "nol" card is a Mifare Desfire, Los Angeles "tap" card is a Mifare Classic, and, yes, the London Oyster is a Mifare Desfire EV1. Yes I actually went through my stack o…

> the London Oyster is a Mifare Desfire EV1

There are two distinct types of Oyster card, but I don't know which is which, other than from a user perspective. All I know is that I had an old style one (the one without the white D in a blue square on the back) and you could still use it, you just couldn't "connect it" to the app so you couldn't look up your travel history.

There was a complicated process for returning it and getting a replacement, but as they'd already phased in paying by bank card by then, and the only advantage of an oyster card was for season tickets, I just returned it and got my deposit back.

But if you're into collecting different card types, you might want to try to get hold of one of these old ones as well. They're probably somewhat rare now, as they were encouraging people to upgrade to the new ones at least 5 years ago.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#458

Post by KineticLensman »

actinium226 wrote: post #421
skeeter2020 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100 Euros for a travel story you'll tell years into the future, and funding the tourism economy - win-win!

"We got fined for getting off the train at the wrong stop" is not much of a travel story though.

> "We got fined for getting off the train at the wrong stop" is not much of a travel story though.

I was on a plane recently and two people in the row behind me were having a lengthy moan about their respective travel experiences / disasters. They stopped escalating when one of them said "That's nothing, we were just coming in to land when the volcano started to erupt."

I was really tempted to stand up and pitch in with a line about landing in Tokyo when Godzilla chose that precise moment to attack, but the fasten-seatbelts sign had just lit up, so I didn't.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#459

Post by tracker1 »

exitb wrote: post #414
bluGill wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many cities in North America do. The key is the fine for not having a ticket is high enough that you are on average much better off having a ticket. Generally this works out to enough random inspections that the average person is checked once a month, and the fine for not having a ticket works out to the cost of a 3 month pass. The exact numbers are of course subject to debate, but the above should give any city a go…

Where I live, I'd be far better off not buying the tickets. The fine is less than 2 months with a pass and I'm checked 2-3 times a year. Yet most of these checks don't find anyone without a ticket. Monthly ticket costs about 1.5% of average monthly income for that city, less than 4% of minimal wage. I'm quite convinced that reasonable pricing is the key.

That's probably a significant part of it. Also accessibility of the monthly passes. I used to live near a rail stop in Tempe/Phx area, and would use it when I had to go to the airport or to Downtown Phx as it was easier than dealing with parking. The ticket kiosks were a bit of a pain, but easy enough, widely available and not overly expensive.

I didn't use it that much, but did see ticket checks on one of the trips, nobody was without one.

Re: The tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets

#460

Post by mcdonje »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #436
sysadmindotfail wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are occasional ticket checks with big fines for non-compliance. I'll likely mangle the explanation but this sort of policy does not fair well when there is a large divide between have/have-not and little/no social safety net. If you are poverty level you will be forever stuck in this cycle: Ticket/fine, court, loss of income, etc. What might work is simply granting free access below a certain income threshold.

What many people do not realize is that one function of tickets is to prevent access to public transportation to people below a certain income threshold. If you do not, you have people using public transport as homeless shelter, urinate, smell badly, openly doing drugs, etc which leads to normal people stopping using public transport and then happily defunding it (as nobody reasonable uses it anymore - too dangerous…

Then make those activities against policy and have transit police.

The solution to bad behavior shouldn't involve cutting off poor people from basic services they need to improve their condition.

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