Life, food, events, and community in Albuquerque, NM
bus pass system
Today as I boarded an ABQ Ride bus it was quickly brought to my attention that my UNM ID would not get me a free ride on the bus, due to the fact that I had failed to get a sticker for the '08-'09 year put on it. I just paid the $1 and felt annoyed that I hadn't heard about needing to get a new sticker, at least not enough to make me remember. But that's beside the point...
As I was riding back I was thinking how really rather pathetic this system was. The entire thing deciding whether I should be able to ride a bus for free or not was a stupid little sticker slapped on my lobo card. And every fall until I leave UNM, one more sticker is going to be slapped on to my card.
So then I thought, if people can swipe my lobo card around campus to see how much money I have on it, put books on my card, and let me get into the gym, it must be able to see if I'm currently a student at UNM. And if so, what if I could just swipe my card when I get on the bus and let it verify that I am indeed a current student. No dealing with getting a class schedule and finding someone to slap a sticker on my card.
Then I realized that what I was thinking of was hardly a new idea. I've heard of transit systems where you buy what is in effect a credit card. When you purchase a pass, you're putting money on the card so that, when you use it, it will show on your card that you have unlimited rides for a week/month/year however long you bought for that pass. Some even have an added feature where you can deactivate the card if it gets stolen. And a solid card would be much better, I think, than those little scraps of paper ABQ Ride currently uses for passes.
Now of course, I know why ABQ Ride can't do anything like this, at least not right now: the fare boxes aren't equipped to handle card swipes. I get that. Still, it's fun to think about. Apparently, those Rail Runner conductors can do it, they have those portable little gizmos which you can swipe your card on. I don't know what their passes look like, but hey. Card swipes.
As I was riding back I was thinking how really rather pathetic this system was. The entire thing deciding whether I should be able to ride a bus for free or not was a stupid little sticker slapped on my lobo card. And every fall until I leave UNM, one more sticker is going to be slapped on to my card.
So then I thought, if people can swipe my lobo card around campus to see how much money I have on it, put books on my card, and let me get into the gym, it must be able to see if I'm currently a student at UNM. And if so, what if I could just swipe my card when I get on the bus and let it verify that I am indeed a current student. No dealing with getting a class schedule and finding someone to slap a sticker on my card.
Then I realized that what I was thinking of was hardly a new idea. I've heard of transit systems where you buy what is in effect a credit card. When you purchase a pass, you're putting money on the card so that, when you use it, it will show on your card that you have unlimited rides for a week/month/year however long you bought for that pass. Some even have an added feature where you can deactivate the card if it gets stolen. And a solid card would be much better, I think, than those little scraps of paper ABQ Ride currently uses for passes.
Now of course, I know why ABQ Ride can't do anything like this, at least not right now: the fare boxes aren't equipped to handle card swipes. I get that. Still, it's fun to think about. Apparently, those Rail Runner conductors can do it, they have those portable little gizmos which you can swipe your card on. I don't know what their passes look like, but hey. Card swipes.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Bernstein on -
It's not just the card swiper ityself, there are other problems: Stored-value cards (that is, the card itself has the information on how many credits it is currently worth) are generally pretty easy to hack, whether by adding credits to it, or by interfering with the process of deleting credits as they are used.
To get around this, you need:
1) A centralized accounting system (in effect an ATM card) and give the buses a means to do realtime transaction verification OR deal with the complexity of eventual transactional reconciliation (say on a daily basis).
OR:
2) A periodic pass system where the card only stores a shared secret (in effect, an electronic version of the sticker) with the same annoyance factor you're currently dealing with.
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Permalink Reply by busboy on -
Michael's response is supported by three recent stories.
The first one concerns the MTA (Massachusetts) and is headlined- "Judge orders halt to Defcon speech on subway card hacking"
- "The Magic MetroCard Machine! - Glitch lets NYC Trio Steal $800G in... Finally, a third enlarges on the significance of the first and is headlined "Not so smart cards easily hacked"
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Permalink Reply by busboy on
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Sorry for the mess above. Let's try again:
The first story concerns Massachusetts' MTA and is headlined Judge orders halt to Defcon speech on subway card hacking
The second enlarges on the significance of the first and is headlined Not so smart cards easily hacked
The third concerns New York's MTA and is headlined The Magic MetroCard Machine! - Glitch lets NYC Trio Steal $800G in
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Permalink Reply by Bluegoo on -
Have used a MetroCard when visting New York City. They only had cards like gift cards back then. Now 2008 they have 3 types. First you load money on card called pay per ride. If you lose the card it's gone for good. The second type is called unlimited ride pass for 7,14 or 30 days that if bought with credit card you can get replaced.
and 3rd one linked to your cc card on a fill it up if it runs out base and can be replaced allso.
http://www.mta.info/metrocard/mcgtreng.htm <--- more info
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