On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 15:09:36 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On 19 Sep 2006 05:31:48 -0700, wrote:


Jarle H Knudsen wrote:
On 19 Sep 2006 04:03:59 -0700, wrote:

For most journeys, though, it's like New
York - you just buy tokens from the booth and it's one token per trip,
no matter how long or how short.

The New York City subway stopped accepting tokens in 2003.

Really? I was last there in 2001 so didn't know. Why did they do
this? What do they now accept instead?

They replaced it with the magnetic stored value / unlimited ride pass
called Metrocard. A great step forward in my view - once you've learnt
the correct swipe speed through the top mounted reader on the turnstile.

http://mta.info/metrocard/index.html

Tokens were very prone to fraud as turnstiles were jammed or fitted with
plastic collecting bags inside the slots. People collected them and then
sold them on a cheaper rate than the MTA.

In addition there were huge costs in maintain the old mechanical
turnstiles and recycling the tokens from turnstiles back to ticket
offices. On top of this you had to collect the cash from offices and
bank it. IIRC there were special trains that ran on the subway to
collect cash and deliver the tokens.

I think tokens are a retrograde step when money or "rides" can be
collected electronically from a magnetic ticket or a smartcard.

It now looks like New York is going contactless too.

http://www.mastercard.com/us/paypass/subway/index.html

I understood that one of the drivers for the US one dollar coin was
for it to replace subway tokens in NY and possibly other cities.
However the coin didn't really catch on, US culture wouldn't give up
the $1 note that easily; you hardly see those $1 coins now. Whether
the NY subway going Metrocard hastened the demise of the coin or
whether the demise of the coin hastened the NY subway going Metrocard,
I'm not sure, but I'm sure they're linked.