Contactless Smart Cards, RFID, Payment, Transit and Security

Bristol could get contactless transit card within a year

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

In an attempt to speed up loading times of buses and trains, the city of Bristol about 100 miles west of London is looking at adding a contactless card system similar to London’s Oyster card. Some 20 or 30 passengers would be able to board a bus in seconds, simply tapping their cards against a sensor, rather than the five minutes it could take now if drivers have to deal with cash and hand out change.

The Bristol City Council has agreed to fund a study to examine the feasibility of introducing reloadable payment smart cards. Still, implementation of such a program is at least a year off.

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MasterCard announced that it intends to present its contactless payment cards to Azerbaijani financial market in 2012.

According to abc.az, MasterCard is in negotiation with the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, as well as Azerbaijan private banks regarding the implementation of projects on non-cash payments and the introduction of contactless cards for payments for applications in transit, dining and entertainment.

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The Peninsula Taxi Association (PTA) in South Africa has launched a electronic fare collection system, granting commuters cashless fare and discounts when using the newly developed contactless-enabled transit card, according to The Cape Times.

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KT Corporation, Korea’s largest teleco, is predicting that 20 million NFC-enabled phones will be in the hands of South Koreans by the end of 2012 – accounting for nearly 40% of the country’s total population, according to NFC World.

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StarChip and CEA-Leti have inked a partnership agreement to develop a contactless front end for smart card applications.

The partnership includes technology and know-how transfer to StarChip. With this combined experience in secure integrated circuit development and contactless technology, StarChip will roll out state-of-the-art smart card products to enable applications in transport, banking and identity.

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The Bay Area’s Clipper transit fare collection program has reached the millionth milestone - 1 million active cards in circulation.

As of Dec. 16, there were 1,000,606 active Clipper cards in use, nearly a 30% increase from the 778,197 active cards in circulation six months ago, and a 142% increase from the 413,616 active cards in circulation a year ago.

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The Jacksonville Transit Authority (JTA) experienced an overwhelmingly large amount of people signing up for the region’s new STAR smart payment card system, according to a local news brief.

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