WMATA - new fare system (2.0)

[JDC]

Recalling a thread from long ago, Metro is once again undertaking efforts to transition to a new fare payment system. Details are discussed in this GGW piece https://ggwash.org/view/67294/metro-rea ... ts-by-2019

[STrRedWolf]

I'm not sure this will work the way we think about, because it's going to depend on Apple getting on board. The fare gates will need to work with what NFC standard cell phones use for Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and Apple Pay. I'm more familiar with Apple Pay, which also will be the sticking point.

To pay for anything with Apple Pay, you need a iPhone 6 or above, and the merchant needs the terminal that'll accept it. When ready, the terminal will ask you to swipe/insert/tap. You tap with a finger or thumb (you programmed it in) on the home button, to authorize payment via a randomized credit card number that for that transaction, is tied to the card you set up at time of transaction. This takes about... 20 seconds or more. Oh, and needs cell phone or wifi service connected.

For the fare gates, you need tap-and-go. 3-5 seconds. Smartrip is tap-and-go, takes under a second, doesn't need wifi. It's pre-loaded.

So? Apple has one part, Apple Pay Cash, for a pre-loaded account, inside it's Wallet system. But can it do tap-and-go? Or does it need to be set up at (gasp!) a kiosk? That's something I haven't heard from Apple. Apple has to provide an API or some way to do tap-and-go with ether Apple Pay Cash or a WMATA Smartrip e-card in the iPhone wallet.

The only humorous up-shot? Having the more senior members of the transit community try to take out their 12.9" iPads to tap on the fare gates to take MetroRail.

[andrewjw]

I'm not sure this will work the way we think about, because it's going to depend on Apple getting on board. The fare gates will need to work with what NFC standard cell phones use for Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and Apple Pay. I'm more familiar with Apple Pay, which also will be the sticking point.

To pay for anything with Apple Pay, you need a iPhone 6 or above, and the merchant needs the terminal that'll accept it. When ready, the terminal will ask you to swipe/insert/tap. You tap with a finger or thumb (you programmed it in) on the home button, to authorize payment via a randomized credit card number that for that transaction, is tied to the card you set up at time of transaction. This takes about... 20 seconds or more. Oh, and needs cell phone or wifi service connected.

For the fare gates, you need tap-and-go. 3-5 seconds. Smartrip is tap-and-go, takes under a second, doesn't need wifi. It's pre-loaded.

So? Apple has one part, Apple Pay Cash, for a pre-loaded account, inside it's Wallet system. But can it do tap-and-go? Or does it need to be set up at (gasp!) a kiosk? That's something I haven't heard from Apple. Apple has to provide an API or some way to do tap-and-go with ether Apple Pay Cash or a WMATA Smartrip e-card in the iPhone wallet.

The only humorous up-shot? Having the more senior members of the transit community try to take out their 12.9" iPads to tap on the fare gates to take MetroRail.

To accept Apple Pay, they just need to support contactless payment, and then it uses whatever credit card is in your Apple Pay. I didn't have to set anything special up in Chicago to use Google Pay (and neither did they, once they supported the open standard). What you wouldn't be able to do is load your SmarTrip card itself in - so WMATA would have to be OK with you just paying directly (as opposed to storing balance on an account and then drawing it out).

Using Google Pay with a regular card took no longer than the regular contactless Ventra payment (which also generates the same unique transaction ID numbers) in Chicago. It's also the exact same technological difficulty as using a contactless credit card.

What would require Apple cooperation would be adding the SmarTrip 2.0 card into Apple Pay, if they decided not to allow contactless payments directly without a SmarTrip account.

[STrRedWolf]

To accept Apple Pay, they just need to support contactless payment, and then it uses whatever credit card is in your Apple Pay. I didn't have to set anything special up in Chicago to use Google Pay (and neither did they, once they supported the open standard). What you wouldn't be able to do is load your SmarTrip card itself in - so WMATA would have to be OK with you just paying directly (as opposed to storing balance on an account and then drawing it out).

Using Google Pay with a regular card took no longer than the regular contactless Ventra payment (which also generates the same unique transaction ID numbers) in Chicago. It's also the exact same technological difficulty as using a contactless credit card.

What would require Apple cooperation would be adding the SmarTrip 2.0 card into Apple Pay, if they decided not to allow contactless payments directly without a SmarTrip account.

Um... Google Pay lets you just tap the phone w/o authentication and go? Or do you have to put your finger on a reader on your phone first?

Apple Pay requires authentication (ether the fingerprint reader on the home button or your face with the iPhone X), and they're stingy with access to the NFC chips. Unless Apple and Cubic Systems (who does Chicago's fare boxes) found a way to do touch-and-go (no thumbing the phone, risk Steve Jobs yelling "YOUR HOLDING IT WRONG!" from the grave)... I can only see a lot of work.

[andrewjw]

To accept Apple Pay, they just need to support contactless payment, and then it uses whatever credit card is in your Apple Pay. I didn't have to set anything special up in Chicago to use Google Pay (and neither did they, once they supported the open standard). What you wouldn't be able to do is load your SmarTrip card itself in - so WMATA would have to be OK with you just paying directly (as opposed to storing balance on an account and then drawing it out).

Using Google Pay with a regular card took no longer than the regular contactless Ventra payment (which also generates the same unique transaction ID numbers) in Chicago. It's also the exact same technological difficulty as using a contactless credit card.

What would require Apple cooperation would be adding the SmarTrip 2.0 card into Apple Pay, if they decided not to allow contactless payments directly without a SmarTrip account.

Um... Google Pay lets you just tap the phone w/o authentication and go? Or do you have to put your finger on a reader on your phone first?

Apple Pay requires authentication (ether the fingerprint reader on the home button or your face with the iPhone X), and they're stingy with access to the NFC chips. Unless Apple and Cubic Systems (who does Chicago's fare boxes) found a way to do touch-and-go (no thumbing the phone, risk Steve Jobs yelling "YOUR HOLDING IT WRONG!" from the grave)... I can only see a lot of work.

Google Pay requires your phone be unlocked, but not a second confirmation after that. You can fingerprint while taking out the phone and then tap and go. Does Apple Pay require an authorization after the transaction has been started? Regardless, if they support contactless credit cards, they will support Apple Pay. They both use NFC tech and unique key generation protocols, and are both much snappier and easier to implement than you are making them out to be.

[JackRussell]

Google Pay requires your phone be unlocked, but not a second confirmation after that. You can fingerprint while taking out the phone and then tap and go. Does Apple Pay require an authorization after the transaction has been started? Regardless, if they support contactless credit cards, they will support Apple Pay. They both use NFC tech and unique key generation protocols, and are both much snappier and easier to implement than you are making them out to be.

Maybe your phone. Not mine (well it used to work, but the Marshmallow update broke it). I unlock the phone (Galaxy S5) with my fingerprint, hold my phone up to a terminal, and it hounds me for the administrative password. Lots of people have the same problem. Lots of people say it shouldn't happen. And yet it always does, and never gets fixed. No workaround, no other useful suggestions. I no longer use Google Pay - too much of a pain in the neck, and these days I just use an EMV credit card instead as that just works. It probably won't be until I get a new phone that I *might* have something that actually works with Google Pay. I can just see standing at the faregate, holding people up, while I enter that damned thing into the phone each and every time I get on/off Metro.

The SmartTrip card by itself is fine - I have no issue with that - quick and easy If I could use an app on the phone check balance or add value, I guess that might be useful, but I just don't see any advantage to using the phone to open a faregate.

[STrRedWolf]

Google Pay requires your phone be unlocked, but not a second confirmation after that. You can fingerprint while taking out the phone and then tap and go. Does Apple Pay require an authorization after the transaction has been started? Regardless, if they support contactless credit cards, they will support Apple Pay. They both use NFC tech and unique key generation protocols, and are both much snappier and easier to implement than you are making them out to be.

Apple Pay requires you to fingerprint every time, no matter if it's locked or not. If the iPhone detects that you're near a NFC device, it'll let you pay then with your last card, locked or not, but I like to unlock it and open the Wallet for a bit more control.

[STrRedWolf]

Maybe your phone. Not mine (well it used to work, but the Marshmallow update broke it). I unlock the phone (Galaxy S5) with my fingerprint, hold my phone up to a terminal, and it hounds me for the administrative password. Lots of people have the same problem. Lots of people say it shouldn't happen. And yet it always does, and never gets fixed. No workaround, no other useful suggestions. I no longer use Google Pay - too much of a pain in the neck, and these days I just use an EMV credit card instead as that just works. It probably won't be until I get a new phone that I *might* have something that actually works with Google Pay. I can just see standing at the faregate, holding people up, while I enter that damned thing into the phone each and every time I get on/off Metro.

The SmartTrip card by itself is fine - I have no issue with that - quick and easy If I could use an app on the phone check balance or add value, I guess that might be useful, but I just don't see any advantage to using the phone to open a faregate.

I agree with you there -- if you have a good setup and the phone's OS allows you, sure, you can wave your phone on the fare gate and go. But we don't have that in the common case. I can see a virtual SmartTrip card if Google(and phone manufactuerors) and Apple would produce a secure API to make it happen... if they did it.

That said, I'll wear my SmartTrip card on my lanyard next to my MARC train pass.

[drwho9437]

I read the fare gate thing somewhere else and I don't know where the GGwash writer got the Apple/Google line from.

They said it would be an application that was a virtual smart trip. All that would require is your phone to broadcast an NFC code, then allow you by any form you want to reload value onto a shared NFC/smart trip code that is registered.

The backend for reloading could be Apple or Google pay, but it might be something else.

I feel like the first trial was more along the lines of we want you to be able to pay with credit cards, use government ID with NFC and phones.

WMATA shouldn't be leading the way on technology for mobile payments. A cheap replacement for the current system would be wiser as the US has not seen strong adoption of these technologies. Once a ubiquitous standard emerges in the US, then invest.

Its fine if the gates are EOL, replace them. Specify two subsystems:

1) The gate -> This should be dead simple and have motor control circuit etc. It should just have a character display (if any). Use a standard industrial bus like CAN to talk to it. It should have a simple API: open gate, close gate, display message on screen. Make sure the physical interface to the gate is dead simply and abstracted. It should not be highly integrated. The gate motor should be isolated in such a way that when you cannot source that part anymore you can drop in a replacement. This may require a inverter board as part of the motor module.

2) The payment module -> This module should have a panel access kickout on the gate to accommodate any future antennas it might need. The shell of the gate can be made large. Have the gate module supply some standard power rails. Now all this module needs to do is the transaction for the payment. As technology changes you simply replace this bit. Should you use wired back-haul or wireless, etc. All of these design choices can be revisited. Maintenance staff can swap this module without the very expensive concrete/construction work of "installing new gates".

Perhaps they already design them like this but I'm not so sure. You could make a mechanism that should be maintainable forever with careful design save for the telecom module, which should be a module that you drop in.

[wrivlin]

In Chicago, the Ventra system has worked pretty well- users have the option of contactless payment or using a Ventra card. The main difference between Chicago and DC is the fact that in DC you have to "tap out" of the system. I don't think Apple Pay or Google Pay support such a system at this point (in Chicago, if you use contactless payment, you hold your phone up to the terminal and it just charges you $2.50). Thus I think it would have to be a separate type of app (though I'm not sure if/how they addressed this problem in the pilot program).

[andrewjw]

In Chicago, the Ventra system has worked pretty well- users have the option of contactless payment or using a Ventra card. The main difference between Chicago and DC is the fact that in DC you have to "tap out" of the system. I don't think Apple Pay or Google Pay support such a system at this point (in Chicago, if you use contactless payment, you hold your phone up to the terminal and it just charges you $2.50). Thus I think it would have to be a separate type of app (though I'm not sure if/how they addressed this problem in the pilot program).

Presumably they could copy Oyster, which works with contactless cards and Google, Samsung, and Apple Pay. You touch in and out, and Google, Apple, and Samsung didn't implement anything special for it: https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/c ... /apple-pay
I expect it charges $0 on entry and logs it internally, just like it does for contactless cards.

[srepetsk]

I read the fare gate thing somewhere else and I don't know where the GGwash writer got the Apple/Google line from.

They said it would be an application that was a virtual smart trip. All that would require is your phone to broadcast an NFC code, then allow you by any form you want to reload value onto a shared NFC/smart trip code that is registered.

Hi, yeah, the WMATA description of what they're doing isn't the clearest. There are two parts of the phone integration: the Metro app, and payments. Payments, as has been described to me, would be done through integration with Apple/Google/Samsung/whoever-else Pay apps, similar to how Suica works in Japan (https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht207154" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). Metro is not using this to move to a central account-based payment system so the fare is still stored on the "virtual" card. There's no round-trip transaction to a Metro database which needs to occur when you tap in or out; it works similar to how the current physical SmarTrip cards to.

The second part is the Metro app. You'll be able to reload your SmarTrip cards and reportedly get real-time train info, alerts, and the other typical features you'd expect from a mobile transit app.

[farecard]

I lament the announcement. It is what a friend calls an "updegrade" al-la Windows 10.

First off, WMATA is digging their hole deeper by using Cubic yet again. I'd hoped they would have learned from past mistakes. I've 'killed' at least 6 unSmartcards, losing money on each one. (You can not walk up to a Sales office and get a refund when they die; as you could with farecards.) I've also learned to never refill a card on a bus; one "read-write error" and your money is RIP. A station fare machine will at least refund your money.

Further, I heard when Cubic was successfully sued over patent issues, WMATA ended up paying the piper, not Cubic.

As for the "magic" hype, I refuse to participate in WMATA's version of Facebook's et.al data mining. WMATA unPrivacy Policy is that they log your travel details, with no expiration data, and do what they wish with it. (That data is worth far more when tied to a specific phone number/MAC address.) They offer it up, without a subpoena much less a search warrant, to any LE/gov't agency; so much for the Bill of Rights.

I'll continue to buy my cards & refills with cash, despite the lost money when (not "if") the card dies.

[Sand Box John]

@ farecard

I am glad I am not the only one that thinks the same way.

I also see this as another potential avenue for identity theft by hackers hacking WMATA's back end.

[STrRedWolf]

Apple's getting on board. Engadget reports that Apple is working with Cubic to unlock the NFC capabilities. Looks like they were in talks with Cubic about it for at least four years now, since they were also talking to HID about NFC door locks.

Looks like my next SmartTrip card would be on my iPhone.