Payment for transit via phone app?

[TransitApp]

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SH9HCM8

A group of college students have an idea to make a phone application that would allow for payment in a transit system. Please take this survey and give feedback! Or let us know some features you would like!

[Busjack]

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SH9HCM8

A group of college students have an idea to make a phone application that would allow for payment in a transit system. Please take this survey and give feedback! Or let us know some features you would like!

If what both CTA and Pace say about Ventra are correct (such as that phones with the equivalent of RFID can be read by Ventra sensors, or that Pace will have an app to read Ventra or other open standards cards by cellphone), this seems unnecessary.

In any event, their app would be useless unless a transit authority adopted it.

Furthermore, their questions about how long you wait for a bus seem irrelevant in the CTA context, in that anyone with an app capable phone would already have a Bus Tracker app on it. Kevin will supply his.

[nflyer22]

There's this video on YouTube that provides some inspiration for the smartphone idea, though the CTA has been relatively quiet about this form of payment, if it is possible at all. CTA currently is quite entangled in its controversy related to all those Ventra-related fees.

The transit app might be a moot idea since from the video, Google Wallet seems to handle the transaction. My assumption is that this aforementioned app is intended for Chicago transit, not some other US city.

[Busjack]

There's this video on YouTube that provides some inspiration for the smartphone idea, though the CTA has been relatively quiet about this form of payment....

That's theoretically how it is supposed to work, except that Ventra isn't live at the moment, and CTA says that the smartphone link will be eventually. This seems to be the only explanation of the process:

But phones also have microchips in them, and this allows them to work the exact same way as a contactless bank card. It’s called near-field communication, or NFC, and many of the newest Android, Windows Phone 8 and Blackberry phones come equipped with it. (Find out if your phone has NFC by checking this list.)

These phones are ready for use at a growing number of locations accepting NFC payments. The Google Wallet Android app allows users to tap and pay at establishments like Macys, Old Navy and Jamba Juice and even some vending machines. Transit agencies in Seoul and London have already adopted NFC for payment. In the United States, the Washington DC Metro and New York City MTA are in the planning stages of doing the same. Philadelphia’s SEPTA, the last major transit system in the USA still accepting tokens, will be upgrading to a system similar to Ventra this year.

I'm surprised that the trial even went that far.

I assume from the display on his smartphone that Google Wallet acts like a MasterCard (as indicated in the above quotation).

I also assume that since the Samsung Galaxy S is on the list, that's how Mrs. Claus sent Santa dirty movies.

[Busjack]

Having thought this over last night....

nflyer, maybe you can clarify this....

As you note, CTA initially mentioned the smartphone option, but hasn't lately, and indicated earlier that it wouldn't be immediately available on rollout.

My original impression was that the Ventra reader would just get the id off the phone, and maybe charge the user's phone bill, but that doesn't seem correct.

If the You Tube experiment would have worked, it was because it was using Google Wallet as an open source credit card.

Therefore, if one wanted to use a NFC phone to, say, store a 30 day pass, like CTA says one can do on an RFID bank card, wouldn't the smartphone user "need an app for that?"

Maybe there is room for CTA or someone else to develop an app along those lines, after all.

Thanking you in advance....

[nflyer22]

Ah, that's a very good catch. I didn't think of it in terms of that regard.

Yes the app would store the "data" I would presume for the CTA to recognize that the user has paid the fare already for an x-day pass since using Google Wallet only deducts the typical $2.25 or so for the usual fare, assuming the option for day passes is unavailable.

[Busjack]

Ah, that's a very good catch. I didn't think of it in terms of that regard.

Yes the app would store the "data" I would presume for the CTA to recognize that the user has paid the fare already for an x-day pass since using Google Wallet only deducts the typical $2.25 or so for the usual fare, assuming the option for day passes is unavailable.

I assume that only the CTA computer would store the user's account credits, whether it was a prepaid amount or a 30 day pass.

Wouldn't it be more the case that the phone would need an app to tell the CTA computer where the user's account with the credit for the 30 day pass is? I'm not sure if that is what you said.

[nflyer22]

Yes that is what I meant to say.

[Tcmetro]

Tri-Met in Portland, OR is actually introducing smartphone tickets sometime this year. Quite an interesting concept, but what if your phone dies or gets stolen in transit?

http://trimet.org/mobiletickets/index.htm

[Busjack]

Tri-Met in Portland, OR is actually introducing smartphone tickets sometime this year. Quite an interesting concept, but what if your phone dies or gets stolen in transit?

http://trimet.org/mobiletickets/index.htm

The "show your electronic ticket to the fare inspector" seems like one way Metra could implement an open standards fare system.

In that the blog says that this is only the first step to smartcards and near field communications, Tri Met seems to be heading in the direction of something like Ventra, but is not near it yet.

If your phone dies then you can't show the conductor anything. If it gets stolen, since the associated credit card must be registered with TriMet (no different than registering your Chicago Card Plus or eventual Ventra card), you call up (apparently using another phone) and have the account canceled. Probably, you also call the police to have your phone tracked and recovered.