Haven’t heard about the Oyster Card, but the Octopus Card is by far the most efficient form of mass transit/mass payment method I have ever seen.

The card is so versatile that ppl use it to pay not only transit (there are senior ones which remove a diff value fare), but parking meters, fast food, convenience store purchases, taxis, vending machines, etc. With 6 million residents, business and transit must move people through the fastest way, and payment is one of the most time consuming transactions in a purchase. One person in line looking for change on the bus, punching in a pin for debit at the movie theatre, purchasing with credit card at a parking machine…

Hong Kong is actually replacing the Octopus now, but it has been so widely used and great security up to this point as few have been able to duplicate fake ones.

It’s good because it does not access people’s bank accounts and are treated as cash. You pay a deposit (maybe $10) on the card so that you don’t just dispose it when your balance is done. Then you just keep adding a balance on the card (like $25 at a time). If you’re at like $0.10 left on your balance, you can still get on the bus, and then when you replenish the amount, it takes that amount off.

The technology has been transferred to watches for kids so that they don’t lose their virtual money. It’s a great monetary system. Unfortunately, businesses in North America don’t like the idea of a non-guaranteed return so they sell gift cards here. As well, the idea that a card can be stolen and anonymously used has people worried about security here. That said, the cards have special chips that are registered and have been used to solve crimes as well.

Add more services, link some databases together and there’s Big Brother potential with this technology…

Of course, all the privacy issues can be handled — this is not a show-stopper — but it is best to consider them early in the process rather than after the rollout!

(BTW, here’s a Wikipedia link on this subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card — data held for 8 months, over 400 police data access requests granted in 8 months…)

Anyway, still a good idea if implemented properly. (In fact, in 2007 I recommended a converged Oyster card solution to the City, so I’m glad to see it resurrected!)

Mike

In Hong Kong the Octopus card doesn’t require any ID to purchase. We paid in HK$ and the process was as quick as buying a LRT pass here – though we dealt with a human in a booth, not a machine. I’m sure there were probably machines dispensing the cards too.

With cards paid for with cash, purchased from many vendors, not just MTR, I doubt there would be much ability to track an identifiable person’s purchases.

Of course such a card then could/would become a suitable conduit for transferring sums between various non-tax-paying parties… The Octopus card has a limit of HK$1000 – about $133 CDN. I’d think a similar limit would be imposed to avoid an obvious attraction to the criminal elements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTR

The (potential) issue is that each time we swipe to enter a station/bus, and each time we swipe to exit, data is collected. This data can be linked to the identity of the individual (or at least to the purchaser). The privacy folks would tend to advise us that unless there is a specific business reason to keep this data, it needs to be scrubbed regularly to prevent secondary uses.

I do know that this was raised in London (where British privacy laws are far less strict that those in Canada) and there was some controversy. For an implementation here, it will be important for a privacy impact assessment to be performed as part of the process.

Mike

Our initial purchase of an Octopus card happened to be at a MTR booth, with a minimum initial amount that could be refunded upon surrender of the card, less a small fee.

The Octopus card was easy to recharge – being able to do that at any MTR station or 7-Eleven convenience store. The 7-Eleven was also happy to accept the Octopus for payment for items we purchased from the store. Beer in Hong Kong is cheap! And 7-Eleven sells beer. Connect the dots. :-)

In all seriousness, all the while we were in Hong Kong, we kept thing that our ETS folks could learn a lesson or three from their MTR system. Very efficient, very clean and exceedingly easy to use.

The expense would come in the card blanks, which can then be customized for use as transit passes, city rec passes, employee identification, and anything else.

Potential good step, but must be aware of technology cracks and scams…. and of course careful monitoring of the process to rule out any internal scams. :)