Contactless Smart Cards, RFID, Payment, Transit and Security

Year of the ORCA

Thursday, December 31, 2009

King County transit authorities are urging Seattleites to adopt ORCA cards for the new year before other forms of payment become obsolete, according to The Seattle Times.

The smart cards, which are expected to be completely phased in over the next year, will replace some 300 different forms of ticketing in the Puget Sound region.


250,000 cards are currently in circulation in Seattle and account for 100,000 trips made daily. Successful holiday sales suggest this number with rise rapidly in the next few months.

ORCA cards are currently available for purchase online or at several retail locations in Seattle, like Saar’s Market Place stores.

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The Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council has published a white paper examining how the transit industry can best make use of NFC technology.

“One of the major challenges facing transit agencies today is how to capitalize on the ever-growing popularity of mobile phones with a solid mobile strategy,” said Transportation Council Chairman Craig Roberts. “This white paper builds on the knowledge base developed in earlier white papers to foster a greater understanding of NFC technology, explain its role in the transit industry, and shed light on key issues facing the transit industry in developing a mobile strategy.”

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The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is teaming up with BART and SamTrans to host a series of sign up events as a push to transition more youths from paper tickets passes to the reloadable Clipper transit fare card.

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Passengers on the SoundRunner ferry connecting the Port of Kingston to downtown Seattle will be able to pay for their fares with contactless ORCA cards starting this week, according to Kitsap Sun.

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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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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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Cubic Transportation Systems, distributor of the electronic transit Clipper card, has responded to the recent news of a Ph.D. student in IT Security allegedly breaking the encryption in Clipper and similar transit cards.

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