Card suppliers ready forLondon Tube race Some dozen smart card suppliers havesubmitted proposals for the contactless cardsthat are to be launched for use on the LondonUnderground, and on the city’s buses, in late2002. A decision on the selection of two orthree suppliers is due to be announced byTranSys, (the consortium implementing thePrestige smart card project for LondonTransport) on May 25 this year.

The technology that will be implementedlooks as if it will be the Mifare contactless cardsystem from Philips Semiconductors. TheMifare system has achieved critical mass in Koreaand other locations, Nicole Carroll, marketingdirector of TranSys told CTT.

The card readers will be supplied by Cubic, apartner in the consortium. Cubic’s Tri-Readerscan can handle any of the three major types ofcontactless card: the ISO 14443 Type A(Mifare); the ISO 14443 Type B (Motorola’stechnology) or Cubic’s own GO card.

Although the smart cards are not due to belaunched until late 2002, the complexinfrastructure to handle the new ticketing isbeing put in place. Cubic, which has alreadyinstalled smart card accepting gates, has justintroduced upgraded ticket vending machines.These use touch screen technology to enablepassengers to select and pay for their tickets. 290machines are now installed at 239 LondonUnderground stations.

Passengers are given various prompts orinstructions to follow a sequence of operations.When the machine is not in use, a series ofscreen savers depicts scenes relating to theUnderground.

The machines offer menus in English and infive foreign languages, and accept credit anddebit cards as well as coins and notes.

“The new technology is very complex but it will make buying a ticket incredibly easy,”said Nicole Carroll, TranSys Marketing Director.“We have tested it extensively and have runsuccessful trials to ensure they are as simple touse as possible. The upgraded machines will helpreduce queues and make buying a ticket that bitmore straightforward. There are handy ‘quick’buttons for the most popular tickets.”

The touch screen user interface has a numberof tables downloaded to it, prepared centrally ona station by station basis, as part of base datapreparation. These tables contain informationabout the types of ticket available and the timesof day they can and cannot be used; thedestinations and zones to which passengers can

buy tickets; the layout of buttons on the basescreen; the palette of colours available forbuttons, texts and backgrounds; and the coloursfrom the palette for each of the ticket selectionbuttons. The range of languages on the newmachines is also prepared by base data.

Early usage has demonstrated how easilypassengers adapt to the new machines. Inresearch carried out at London Undergroundstations, 79% of all passengers questioned foundthe new machines ‘better’ or ‘much better’ thanthe old machines. This figure rises to 85%among passengers using credit or debit cards, anew feature on these machines.

London Underground and TranSys haveresponded to early passenger experience of usingcredit and debit cards for the first time on ticketmachines by extending the ‘card time-out’ func-tion (which protects passengers’ cards byretaining them after a certain period if they arenot taken from the slot) from 15 seconds to 30seconds, while passengers become used to thenew option.

A promotional campaign to raise awareness ofthe upgraded machines (‘our new ticketmachines – a touch more convenient’) waslaunched on February 12th.

(See Feature: Smart Cards for London – Is thisthe way forward? p13.)

Contact: Nicole Carroll at TranSys, Tel: +44 20 7918, e-mail: nicole.carroll@eds.com

Washington to extendsmart Metro ticketing toregional buses The Washington Metropolitan Area TransitAuthority (WMATA) is to extend theWashington Metro’s SmarTrip fare collectionsystem to WMATA buses serving Washington,D.C. and parts of Maryland and Virginia.Public transit customers will now be able touse one fare card for subway and bus journeysand for parking.

The $20 million contract to provide the inter-state contactless mass transit ticketing system hasbeen awarded to Cubic Transportation Systems.Cubic was the architect of Washington’s two-year-old SmarTrip fare system, which now has140,000 smart card users.

Under the new contract, Metro buses will useCubic’s Tri-Reader technology to upgrade buseswith multi-card fare readers.

Tri-Reader can be plugged into both new andexisting mass transit systems. Cubic hassubcontracted with GFI Genfare for ‘validating’boxes that will integrate the Tri-Reader into

3Card Technology Today March 2001

news

• Xerox Corporation is to use the BibitInternet payments system for handlingpayment transactions in Europe. Bibit offers anend-to-end package that can processtransactions in more than 50 currencies andwill handle payments though direct debit,telebanking, WAP-based mobile phones, SET-based PCs and smart and magnetic stripe creditcards at the point of sale. Bibit is a privatelyheld company, whose investors include theDutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Paribasand Continuum Group. Bibit promotes itssystem strongly to US businesses seeking anopportunity to penetrate the European e-commerce market. The company’s client listincludes DaimlerChrysler, The FinancialTimes, Canon, Free Record Shop, Ahold andInterflora.

• Domain Dynamics has granted a licence forits TESPAR voice authentication technology toConsult Hyperion. Hyperion intends to useTESPAR to develop systems that will put voicetechnology on to multi-application smart cardsrunning in Personal Digital Assistants (and insimilar devices); this technology can be used toprovide positive verification of a user’s claimedidentity. TESPAR code and user templates havealready been successfully ported to 8 bitstandard and 8 bit Java smart cards. ConsultHyperion brings to the partnership expertise incryptography, PKI and digital certification, tocomplement Domain Dynamics’ speechbiometrics. Martin George of Domain saysthat TESPAR is highly economic in its use ofpower, memory and processing. TESPARencodes waveforms by defining three basicdescriptors – shape, duration and amplitude.Each set of descriptors produces a symbol; anda TESPAR alphabet of only 29 symbols hasbeen developed to be used in characterising anysignal.

• Ingenico Fortronic has moved into the Irishmarket for smart card payment terminalsthrough a deal with Dublin distributorDatabank Systems. Databank supplies loyaltyschemes and payment systems for Irish retailersand banks. Most innovative of these schemes isthe E-purse application that enables users tostore deposits on their smart cards as well asusing them for cashless payments; 35,000 E-purse cards are currently in issue. The contractwith Databank follows Ingenico’s acquisition ofUK loyalty specialists Saunders Jefferies (CTTSeptember 2000, p.9); Saunders Jefferiessupplied Databank with its first smart card-based loyalty scheme, for Pettitt’sSupermarkets, in 1998.

in briefmass transit

mass transit

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