May
12
Video: Talking MetroCard futures on NBC
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View more videos at: http://www.nbcnewyork.com
Last night, I made an appearance on NBC New York Non-Stop’s Nightly News with Chuck Scarborough to talk about the future of MetroCards. For regular SAS readers, this is a topic well covered in recent months as the MTA gears up to phase out the MetroCard in exchange for a tap-and-go system revolving around bank cards and an MTA Card. If you missed it last night, you can check out my appearance in the video embedded above. Enjoy.
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13 Responses to “Video: Talking MetroCard futures on NBC”
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[...] agencies that support more infrastructure investment, and Second Avenue Sagas‘ Ben Kabak is a major-league fan of the MTA’s work today. On the technical side there are Systemic Failure, Clem [...]
Thanks for the video link. Channel 4-2 is one of our favorites these days.
Nice job Ben.
Congrats on the appearance.
Congratulations! Very clear and informative.
Yes, nice job!
Ben’s the MAN!
Well done!
You did a great job!!
woot woot
Good interview overall – I especially liked your emphasis of the cellphone payment, an Octopus/Suica innovation that Oyster as usual forwent and that the MTA is doing wrong (relying on private vendors even though by its own admission the technology has not gained “mainstream acceptance”).
Just one annoying thing at the end: do not blame the MTA’s high fare collection costs on old technology. In Central Europe they still use paper tickets, and their fare collection costs are low. The MTA’s 15-cents-on-the-dollar talking point is given with no cross-city comparison or breakdown or explanation; it’s meant to intimidate, not start public discussion.
The metrocard tech is friction-intensive and subject to weardown and clogging. The cards wear out and the readers in the turnstiles and TVMs wear out. It’s pretty obvious that the new leadership at MTA want to reduce greatly the number of moving parts that wear out and need to be replaced in payment. That being said, this would be their opportunity to implement zone fares, as they could replace the turnstiles or remove them entirely. I’d suggest that since this is supposed to be E-ZPass style fare collection, there should be no barrier to entry or egress and the RFID should be read from a distance, rather than the method used in their PayPass program on the Lexington Ave Line. The problem then becomes that of the end user, of ensuring that only the correct RFID card is picked. That being the case, I’m not so sure that the PayPass system would work in the desired manner in that scenario. It’s my view that the MTA should just make a proprietary RFID card for Subway and Bus use and let them be filled or linked online or at convenience stores, where a clerk could receive the cash, provide a one-time code that can be used over the phone to fill a card. Maybe a coordinated effort with the lottery commission would be in order. No more TVMs to maintain. As to security, using three RFID sensors should allow for a real-time relative location of the holder so that non-holders can be picked out and traced. The MTA needs to outfit the MTA museum or another inactive station to run a proper test of this fare collection model.
RFID would also solve that whole issue with the Select Bus Service fare slips. RFID fix everything.