SmartTrip Questions

Basic questions, sorry if they have been asked before. Can I refill my SmartTrip at any station or just the ones with parking that sell SmartTrips? Also can I buy a SmartTrip at Metro Center w/o leaving fare control?

You can refill at any machine except for the ExitFare machines inside the faregates. Not a problem since the system will allow you to leave with a negative balance.

Unlike uphere in Boston with the Chalie Card it won't let you out with a negative balnce. Therefore in Boston, you must have 1.70 left to enter the system or board a Green line Trolley or bus. I am also a Metro SmarTrip so-called "CharlieCard" and it works esentially the same except for negative balances

To answer your other question, yes, you can buy a SmarTrip at Metro Center without leaving the system. The customer service kiosk is doubles-sided to be able to serve people on both sides of the gate. For what it's worth, you can also refill your SmarTrip on any Metrobus, Circulator, and all regional bus services that accept it. (Though, I've run into a shocking number of supposedly broken SmarTrip kiosks on buses that don't allow reloading of money.)

3-4 people who know of my interest in things Metro told me there was a report that Cubix has stopped making DumbTrip cards and WMATA has maybe a 2 year supply.

But I can't find such a story. Does anyone know what they might be referring to?

farecard wrote:3-4 people who know of my interest in things Metro told me there was a report that Cubix has stopped making DumbTrip cards and WMATA has maybe a 2 year supply.

But I can't find such a story. Does anyone know what they might be referring to?

I saw that report in the news myself - fairly recently when they were discussing the possibility of lowering the cost of the things. They were concerned that if they lowered the price too much that people would use once and throw away.

GreaterGreaterWashington has written extensively on the topic (and yes, they have a finite supply of cards).

Wow, this seems to be the first in what will probably become a common occurrence of transit systems getting stuck with high tech cards that are no longer made or supported (not to mention being hacked out the wazoo). At least with mag stripes the technology was easy to find third parties to support.

Jersey_Mike wrote:Wow, this seems to be the first in what will probably become a common occurrence of transit systems getting stuck with high tech cards that are no longer made or supported (not to mention being hacked out the wazoo). At least with mag stripes the technology was easy to find third parties to support. :(

From what little I know of the history of the whole Dumbcard project; if anyone were to look at it in NTSB-level detail, I'd guess that some folks would end up in orange jumpsuits.

The old truism Never attribute to malice that more easily explained by incompetence... does have limits.

Regarding the SmarTrip isssues: I submit this knowledgeable column from tech writer Kurt Rascke. In short, the sky is NOT falling.
http://www.kurtraschke.com/2010/10/smartrip-myths

The WMATA SmarTrip imbroglio continues with two posts from Sunlight Labs and Transportation Nation. The Sunlight Labs post opens with the following falsehood: “Well, the vendor that our transit planners bought it from has gone out of business, and they’re pulling SmarTrip into oblivion with them: the card incorporates proprietary technology, so it’s impossible to find a new supplier.” Regrettably, Transportation Nation perpetuates the myth, saying “Metro also discovered it has a limited supply of SmarTrip cards and the company that makes them no longer exists. To make matters worse, this non-existent company has a proprietary claim on the SmarTrip technology, so Metro can’t even work with a different company to make more.”

This is patently false. No company has gone out of business, period. Moreover, most of the technology behind SmarTrip is in the software which drives the system, Cubic Nextfare. Nextfare supports ISO 14443-compliant smart cards (ISO 14443 is the international standard for contactless smart cards) as well as the Cubic-proprietary GO CARD, which is what the SmarTrip card is currently based on. There’s no need to “make more” SmarTrip cards (by which we mean GO CARD-based SmarTrip cards), since it is entirely possible to migrate the SmarTrip card to a new smart card platform (that is, any ISO 14443-compliant smart card, like the MIFARE Plus). However, the Sunlight Labs post continues with more FUD; here’s a point-by-point dissection and rebuttal:

A infinite supply of cards won't make the system any better; it will just keep it from totally failing.

I visited Baltimore on Saturday and my visit included a ride on the MUTA's light rail ine from North Linthicum to Hunt Valley and return. I found MTA's fare machines were able to read my Smart Trip card and I was able to add value to it. In that regard, I could say it "worked like a charm", or worked just like a MTA Charm card. However, I could not figure out a way to use the Smart Trip card to buy a day pass from the MTA vending machine; it seemed to want cash or a credit card to pay the fare.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/tra ... ory_1.html

[Lots of vendors smelling a payoff & chomping at the bit, etc]

I guess all the hype about the magic Metro's Cubix cards is now "inoperative..." Will WMATA [aka us] end up paying for any court cases against the new supplier, too?



Under the new system, riders would not need to go to a fare machine. Instead, they would be able to walk directly to fare gates and pay their fare by flashing a smartphone, key fob, or credit or debit card at a reader.

Sarles compared it to using E-ZPass, the electronic toll-collection system.

“You just get on the highway and go right through,” he said. “You don’t worry about what it says on the toll ticker or how much change do I have to get out. You just go right through. It would be so much more convenient and so much less confusing for all our customers.”


And of course, you never really know how much a trip cost you. (Would YOU trust WMATA with access to your debit card?)

There's lip service to being able to pay cash, but I bet it involves 2X the fare or similar.

E-ZPass doesn't charge tolls directly to your bank/credit card. You have an E-ZPass account, and when the balance in the account drops below a certain threshold it is automatically replenished from your bank/credit card (doing one big transaction saves on processing fees compared to lots of small transactions.) It works almost exactly like a SmarTrip with Auto Reload... which already exists! Doh.

A lot is riding on the change, officials say. When Metro raises fares or offers a new discount, for example, it may have to spend as much as $1 million to have its fare-collection software reprogrammed by the company that owns the technology and software.

This is a contracting/program management issue, not a technology issue. If Metro isn't careful going forward, they could end up in the same boat with a different supplier.

Metro did a pilot program a decade ago with Citibank that allowed riders to use bank-issued credit cards to pay for fares.

If I remember correctly, this program involved Citibank issuing a credit card that also contained a SmarTrip chip. The SmarTrip chip functioned as a standard SmarTrip card with a standard SmarTrip account. You had to add money to it at the fare machine. You could not pay your fare directly using the credit card account.