In message , at 07:04:39 on Thu, 6 Oct
2005, Neil Williams remarked:
A solution for infrequent
travellers could be the sort of flexible, disposable contactless card
I've used in Lisbon. There isn't a deposit, rather a charge, of 50
cents and it can be reused for a year. These cards *may* only be
capable of storing "normal" tickets bought from a machine or human,
the publicity is of course not very technical (and in Portuguese!).

This sounds a very good idea, especially for tourists etc. There is
another precedent in the Washington DC Farecards, where you buy a card
of a specific value and credit is deducted from it for each journey.
It's a magstripe technology, but I don't see why a non-contact
smartcard version shouldn't be feasible, if at a slightly greater
cost.

New York subways also have a mag-stripe card which you can load with
money for several journeys. One disadvantage for the infrequent
traveller (and tourist) is that the credit expires after a year.
--
Roland Perry