Luas SmartCard - technical

bibibobo

Anybody know what technology is in the luas smart card? i cant see the chip in mine, it must be embedded inside. i'm gonna x-ray it in work and i'll post a pic here. in the mean time if anybody knows what technology is used then please post.

murphaph

bibibobo wrote:

Anybody know what technology is in the luas smart card? i cant see the chip in mine, it must be embedded inside. i'm gonna x-ray it in work and i'll post a pic here. in the mean time if anybody knows what technology is used then please post.

I'd guess it's RFID.

antoinolachtnai

It's not RFID. It's an actual computer on the chip, which is powered up by the electromagnetic field from the reader.

It's worth looking at http://www.secureidnews.com/news/2005/02/17/smart-card-alliance-publishes-paper-contrasting-rfid-tags-and-contactless-smart-cards/ to understand the difference.

If you dig around on Google, you will find plenty about the technology.

Rew

RFID dosnt refer to any partcular technology so yes you could consider the Luas cards as RFID units. All passive RFIDs are powered up by the electromagnetic field from the reader BTW. The link is good but TBH the Smart Card people are just being a snobish and want to say there better then traditional RFID suff (supply chain managment etc). Iv seen WiFi based tags refered to as RFID and contactless smart cards have an awfull lot more in common with what most people think of as RFID. Most RFID stuff you hear about are the simple tags that just respond to the reader with their unique ID but there are loads of ones with memmory and processing power.

To be fair the fact that the term RFID gets used for everything leads to loads of confusion and problems when trying to buy equipment.

The article is talking about this page which gives a good overview of what they consider to be the differences:

http://www.smartcardalliance.org/alliance_activities/rfidvscontactless.cfm

If the Luas ones are anything like the ones iv seen they form an encrypted session with the reader for the duration of the transaction, which means you cannt snoop the details. You can key them to specfic readers as well for added security. We have em in WIT for access controll, printing/photocopying and payment on campus.

If you do X-Ray it you should see a big loop going arond the card which is the antenna and a small chip (probably in one of the corners).

zg3409

see:
http://www.rfidanalysis.org/
for how encrypted RFIDs have been read from peoples pockets and cloned.

how many bits encryption does Luas use?

themole

hmm,

i was at a talk before about hardware encryption hacking. ie hacking hardware based encryption devices.

one of the techinques they used was to use a laser to burn the coating from a memory on a chip and then read the contents by reading from each memory cell directly, forget the details.

there were loads of other methods used, such as detecting power fluctuations during different operations.

all interesting stuff, with the end story being that none of the commercially available hardware techniques were completely secure

Capt'n Midnight

Anyone got any info on the hand held device the conductor uses ?
Does it show how much is left on the card or only the last validation time ?

Victor

bibibobo wrote:

i'm gonna x-ray it in work and i'll post a pic here.

ZAP!

zg3409 wrote:

see:
http://www.rfidanalysis.org/
for how encrypted RFIDs have been read from peoples pockets and cloned. how many bits encryption does Luas use?

I'm not sure how many people are actually going to go that far to steal €10 from your (anonymous) card.

Capt'n Midnight

Victor wrote:

I'm not sure how many people are actually going to go that far to steal €10 from your (anonymous) card.

Just how many €10's would there be on a tram during rush hour ?
If you register your card they will give you back credit if the card is lost or stolen. So hopefully the users details are stored on a central dB rather than on the "anonymous" card.

Rew

Chances are there is mutual authentiction between the cards and the readers (at least you would hope), depends on how sophiscated the ticket is. I dont live in Dub so havn't seen one yet. The ones we have in WIT have stoarage and processing power.

The its intresing that they give back credit if the card is lost stolen as they would have to bar the card from being used after its reported. That means the system is centrally managed and chances are registration details are held on the server, otherwise your details would be gone with the card when its lost. If it is centrally managed is it updated in real time or at fixed interviles (when the tram is in a station it could recive updates and uplaod its logs for example).

Now heres the intresting bit. I do a lot of work with loction and tracking the position of a person or device. If you have a registered card on a centrally managed system they can track you postion to a certain degree. Maybe not in real time but they could do a good profile of your historical movements. Using the profile you could predict your next few tram journeys. Now that sound like far fetched big bro but ill put money on them using all the data anonymously ATM to do profiling of how busy the trams are and how the service is being utalised and attempting to predict future trends.

zg3409

>Anyone got any info on the hand held device the conductor uses ?
>Does it show how much is left on the card or only the last validation time ?

Acording to luas.ie the conductor can tell you when you last clocked on. It doesn't mention if he knows the balance. The last time you clocked on may be stored in the card or on a central database which he has access.

>I'm not sure how many people are actually going to go that far to steal €10 >from your (anonymous) card

You can store up to 103 euro on your card, 100 euro for journeys and 3 euro reserve for when you are nearly out.

The plan is also to use this or newer version of the car for trains, dart and busses within a year so potentially all the money from public transport in Ireland will be on these cards in the future.

If using the tram daily you would have a lot more than 3 euro on your card.

> I dont live in Dub so havn't seen one yet.

See www.luas.ie

>Using the profile you could predict your next few tram journeys. Now that >sound like far fetched big bro but ill put money on them using all the data >anonymously ATM to do profiling of how busy the trams are and how the >service is being utalised and attempting to predict future trends.

You can see your history by reading the card at the ticket machine and pressing history. If they have the history of course they know what time you get the luas every day.

Victor

zg3409 wrote:

>I'm not sure how many people are actually going to go that far to steal €10 >from your (anonymous) card

You can store up to 103 euro on your card, 100 euro for journeys and 3 euro reserve for when you are nearly out.

But how are they going to use this money other than for fares?

zg3409

There is no way initially. You could theoretically sell cloned cards. In other countries where this has been implemented people have used there travel cards to pay for things such as newpapers, cans of coke etc. at train stations or other shops linked to the system.

While they don't know your name unless you register the card they do know your travel habbits and can use that to profile general usage etc.

murphaph

Rew wrote:

Using the profile you could predict your next few tram journeys. Now that sound like far fetched big bro but ill put money on them using all the data anonymously ATM to do profiling of how busy the trams are and how the service is being utalised and attempting to predict future trends.

I raised this very point on P11 boards a while back. This is a very positive aspect to ths smart card that paper tickets wouldn't usually give. For instance in a paper ticket zonal fare system, I can buy a ticket for 2 zones or whatever, but the authorities have no idea where I will go, north, south, east or west! With the tag-on, tag-off they will know travel patterns of every user (hopefully the majority of daily commuters) instantly. No need for extensive passenger demand studies (this is how they ascertain which route changes are required in cities in Germany for example). Just check the database and instantly we know that x number of people travel between y and z. The x might be sufficiently large to warrant a direct bus/tram/DART whatever so the routes can be modified much more easily and reliably as the city's dynamic changes.

antoinolachtnai

Well, the most important thing is for the system to be able to accurately allocate fares to the correct transport company. Revenue allocation with surveys just doesn't cut it when you have a lot of different companies involved.

SeanW

murphaph wrote:

I raised this very point on P11 boards a while back. This is a very positive aspect to ths smart card that paper tickets wouldn't usually give. For instance in a paper ticket zonal fare system, I can buy a ticket for 2 zones or whatever, but the authorities have no idea where I will go, north, south, east or west! With the tag-on, tag-off they will know travel patterns of every user (hopefully the majority of daily commuters) instantly. No need for extensive passenger demand studies (this is how they ascertain which route changes are required in cities in Germany for example).

That's great for a bunch of big-brother administrators, but for individuals it often means pay-per-mode like what we have here (i.e. you pay seperately for the Luas, DB and Irish Rail segments of your journey) as opposed to the German way whereby you buy a single ticket, or a single day pass and that is good in whatever zones you requested regardless of whether you used buses, trams U-Bahns or S-Bahns or any combination thereof.

That's the kind of thinking we need more of here. There is no justifying this farce that is the governments plan for "Integrated Ticketing."

Give us a BVG/MVV style transport agnecy for Dublin - THEN tell us how fragmenting everything into a million bits is so great.

murphaph

SeanW wrote:

....but for individuals it often means pay-per-mode like what we have here (i.e. you pay seperately for the Luas, DB and Irish Rail segments of your journey)

That's not the fault of the technology. We're taking great technology that would allow precise allocation of fare revenue to the various operators and we're not using that facility. That's the fault of the Department of Transport. The smart cards are better than paper in this regard, as if all daily commuters use them then the need for (often complex) passenger demand studies is gone as you already have all your data. We could introduce integrated fares (zonal, reduced price onward journey etc.) with or without smart cards. We appear to be in no hurry to do so, but again, not the fault of the technology which has great potential. As for big brother knowing where you are.....do ya have a mobile? If so, your mobile operator will have a better idea where you are at any given time than Connex.

SeanW

That's not the fault of the technology.

It IS the fault of the technology in two ways.

1: It will be used to cover up the fundamental incoherence of the multitude of transport agencies in the city, they just have to implement smart cards, call it "Integrated Ticketing" and thats that. The technology gives the bureaucrats somewhere to run, a place to hide. The result will be a patched-up system thats just messed up enough to not be right, but not messed up enough to be hugely wrong.

2: It can only work when the user is paying-as-you-go. - it would be much harder to make this work for people who prefer to buy day passes etc. Unless you had physical barriers guarding entry and exit at all bus, train and tram stops. If the DTO, DoT etc, read this and say "ah, bejaysus, this Philip fella says that getting everyone to tag on and tag off will give us a lot more information, we must get everyone to use them" my guess is that not only would there NEVER be a truly integrated fare structure, but the current selection of day/week Rambler tickets, Flexi tickets and Daysaver tickets would be withdrawn.

That's why I'm against the introduction of smart cards at this time, they only work for pay-as-you-go arrangements, and will be used as a cover for "Integrated Ticketing."

murphaph

SeanW wrote:

It IS the fault of the technology in two ways.

1: It will be used to cover up the fundamental incoherence of the multitude of transport agencies in the city, they just have to implement smart cards, call it "Integrated Ticketing" and thats that. The technology gives the bureaucrats somewhere to run, a place to hide. The result will be a patched-up system thats just messed up enough to not be right, but not messed up enough to be hugely wrong.

So the technology will be used as a cover up. I agree. That's not the fault of the technology, about wich this thread is discussing. The thread is not about the can o' piss lack of integrated fares (note I said fares, not ticketing). That's the fault of our policymakers and transport operators.

SeanW wrote:

2: It can only work when the user is paying-as-you-go. - it would be much harder to make this work for people who prefer to buy day passes etc. Unless you had physical barriers guarding entry and exit at all bus, train and tram stops. If the DTO, DoT etc, read this and say "ah, bejaysus, this Philip fella says that getting everyone to tag on and tag off will give us a lot more information, we must get everyone to use them" my guess is that not only would there NEVER be a truly integrated fare structure, but the current selection of day/week Rambler tickets, Flexi tickets and Daysaver tickets would be withdrawn.

That's why I'm against the introduction of smart cards at this time, they only work for pay-as-you-go arrangements, and will be used as a cover for "Integrated Ticketing."

They are certainly most suited to everyday commuters. That's their target market and where they have been introduced elsewhere (Oyster card for example) there are generally tempting discounts offered to commuters to get them to move to cashless/paperless smart cards. The vast majority of users of public transport (within cities anyway) are commuters or at least residents. These are the people we're most interested in serving, so knowing their transport needs and patterns is vital for a dynamic system that can adapt routes as passenger flows dictate. As for people who like day passes (I'm one of them because I don't use PT to commute to work), there's no need to force them to use smart cards. They can just continue using paper tickets from machines. The two systems happily co-exist elsewhere. The smart cards are extremely versatile. they can store a number of different ticket types in electronic format-I could have my smart card empty (bar the reserve) for months at a time, then charge up with an 'electronic one day pass' or whatever and ramble about the city, same as if I went to spar to buy it except that I can charge the card up from the comfort of my own home before I leave the house. In the same vein, a weekly/monthly/annual ticket can be stored in electronic form on the card. This is far superior to a monthly ticket issued from a machine in Munich (I know-I've been to the MVG offices at Poccistr. to beg them to replace a monthly ticket that had been through the wash. The only thing that wasn't visible was the year, the old biddy said the ticket could have been from last year and my girlfriend would have to pay another 50EUR for a new ticket.....arrghh, this was after paying a 40EUR standard fare for travelling on said ticket and being inspected, or as the Germans say 'controlled' on the U-Bahn). If you lose your (registered) smart card you'll just have to call the authorities and buy a new plastic card, 3EUR or whatever instead of the full monthly.

All the above is just to point out the massive advantages that can come about by using technology. Our transport bodies have their heads up their a*ses and that's another matter, not fair to blame smart card technology for that.

Capt'n Midnight

Sony FeliCa is one system out there in common use I don't know if it's used on LUAS or not but I would expect something similar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_Card

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_Card

there are twice as many Octopus cards in circulation as there are people living in Hong Kong. Surveys by the MTR show that this is because the card is fully refundable, except for a HK$7 (USD 0.90) administrative charge for cards refunded within 3 months after issue, which was introduced on November 1, 2004

The Octopus card uses the Sony 13.56 MHz FeliCa radio frequency identification (RFID) chip ... Data is transmitted at up to 212 kbit/s (the maximum speed for Sony FeliCa chips), ... Octopus uses a nonstandard system for RFID instead of the ISO 14443 standards,

Octopus is specifically designed so that card transactions are relayed for clearing on a store and forward basis, without any requirement for reader units to have realtime round-trip communications with a central database or computer. (As of 2005, the database systems are provided by Oracle Corporation). The stored data about the transaction may be transmitted by network after hours, or in the case of offline mobile readers may be retrieved by a hand held device, for example a Pocket PC.

Handheld devices are used to scan offline mobile readers, including those installed on minibuses. Buses either use handheld devices or a wireless system, depending on operator...

The Octopus card uses encryption for all airborne communication and it uses two-way authentication based on public key infrastructure (PKI).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa

FeliCa's encryption key is dynamically generated every time mutual authentication is performed, preventing fraud such as impersonation. FeliCa supports simultaneous access of up to 8 blocks (1 block is 16 bytes). If an IC card is moved outside of the power-supplied area during the session, the FeliCa card automatically discards incomplete data to restore the previous state.

SeanW

In the same vein, a weekly/monthly/annual ticket can be stored in electronic form on the card.

As far as I know this is not the plan for this card system.

But if the whole point of smart cards is to know where everyone is going, what good does introducing e-day passes do for that? The current system works whereby you "tag-on" at your point of origin and "tag-off" when you get off. The idea behind this is that if you don't tag-off where you get off, the system assumes you went to the end of the line. If the person uses an all day all zone pass, whats to make them tag-off when disembarking the tram?

Victor

SeanW wrote:

If the person uses an all day all zone pass, whats to make them tag-off when disembarking the tram?

There is no absolute need for them to log off. For such systems the fare-basket need only be fair, not absolutely correct.

Potentially you could:

(a) Work out from the next trip on the day pass where the current one ended.
(b) Assume the passenger went to the end of the line.
(b) Assume the passenger made one of the popular journies on that route.

This give you enough information to split say a €3 pass 60:40 between two operators. Or it might be 65:35 or 75:25, whatever model is agreed. It's not going to end up as 25:75 or 100:00.

SeanW

My point is that - in terms of integration and joined up thinking - the German systems MVV in Munich and BVG in Berlin, beat Dublins fragmented mess hands down. All this without smart cards of any sort

The very fact that the introduction of smart cards here is being promoted by the RPA as "integrated ticketing" is proof that they're using it as a cover-up - nothing more. That's why I'm against it.

Capt'n Midnight

Victor wrote:

(b) Assume the passenger went to the end of the line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EZ-link

To avoid the problem of fare-cheats, i.e. people who pay the wrong fare, the system imposes a maximum deduction at the start and then a refund when the card is tapped again at the exit. Initially it was not very well received by Singaporean commuters due to numerous glitches, which were mostly ironed out by the second year of operation.

In the UK you can get Zone 2 to 6 Commuter tickets (cheaper than a Zone 1 to 6) and then carry an Oyster card for zone 1 to 3 but ...
http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/000198.html

If you travel into London from outside these zones, on a paper ticket which you present to the slot in a Tube ticket barrier on your right, you do not want money to be deducted from your zone 1 to 3 Oyster Card as well

murphaph

SeanW wrote:

As far as I know this is not the plan for this card system.

It's a capability of the system. if it is not used it is not the fault of the technology. It's the DoT's fault.

SeanW wrote:

But if the whole point of smart cards is to know where everyone is going, what good does introducing e-day passes do for that?

They could simply charge a small penalty fare for not tagging off. The fact is the technology is flexible. Tag-on tag off may seem like a nuisance but it's no more inconvenient than having to pass through an automated ticket barrier, slightly less so in fact. the benefits from knowing exactly which bus/tram/train/taxi people take are enormous. If we based all route changes on this data we'd have a network that served us better, so tag-on tag-off would be easily worth the 'inconvenience' if you can call it that.

SeanW wrote:

My point is that - in terms of integration and joined up thinking - the German systems MVV in Munich and BVG in Berlin, beat Dublins fragmented mess hands down. All this without smart cards of any sort

Yeah, that's true. That doesn't mean the German's can't improve their system, which Berlin is doing by introducing smart cards. We may as well skip the paper tickets as being the only type available and make all regular commuters' (weekly/monthly/annual) tickets available on a smart card only basis.

SeanW

It's a capability of the system.

But is it the capability of THIS system? Or would it require a massive song-n-dance.

Tag-on tag off may seem like a nuisance but it's no more inconvenient than having to pass through an automated ticket barrier, slightly less so in fact.

Fair enough for DARTs and Metros but on Trams and Buses which are used to barrierless operation? It would be a needless pain in the butt. Thanks, but no thanks

the benefits from knowing exactly which bus/tram/train/taxi

How would you tag-on and tag-off a taxi? Why? Would you put us in an Orwellian situation where you have to have a smartcard to ride a taxi?

That doesn't mean the German's can't improve their system

It means a number of things.

First of all, it means you don't need to have smart cards to have an excellent system and indeed can build a world-class, top of the line system without them.

Secondly, its difficult to improve on perfection which is what the BVG seems to be trying to do. Instead of the current flat-fare system, the tick.et system will charge people based on distance travelled. Which is great assuming no-one likes the flat-fare system over hours, days, weeks etc.

But the BVG does not. They are introducing a Metrocard, which allows flat-cost monthly usage of either Public Transport and/or car services for one month which will be handy for Berlin commuters and Berliners who like to ramble This seems to be at most partially related to the tick.et smart card system.

You on the other hand want to implement smart cards (with the associated extra BS) to the total exclusion of anything else, and that's what I can't accept.

murphaph

I give up.

SeanW

murphaph wrote:

I give up.

Awww man ... and just when the debate was gettin' hot ...

murphaph

I can't tonight. I'm too tired.

antoinolachtnai

It is worth saying that a paper-ticket system won't give the administrators enough information to adequately run a system where there are many different public transport operators.

It is unclear how the transport industry is going to be structured in Ireland. If it falls out the way it looks like it is going to fall out, however, there is little chance of there ever being a 'season ticket' or 'weekly ticket' that covers all operators in a geographical area (such as Dublin). There will be many operators, all operating different fare schedules. There's just no sane way of allocating the season ticket revenue betwen the operators.

So it'll be pay-per-trip-by-cash or pay-per-trip-by-smartcard. There might be season tickets for a particular operator, and they could be stored on the smartcard. Alternatively, an operator might operate a weekly or monthly 'cap' as an alternative to the season ticket.

Once the capital has been invested in the smartcard system (it is a massive cost, but it can be rationalized in terms of savings) and the administration system has been put in place, there really won't be any point in having an alternative scheme.

murphaph

antoinolachtnai wrote:

It is unclear how the transport industry is going to be structured in Ireland. If it falls out the way it looks like it is going to fall out, however, there is little chance of there ever being a 'season ticket' or 'weekly ticket' that covers all operators in a geographical area (such as Dublin). There will be many operators, all operating different fare schedules. There's just no sane way of allocating the season ticket revenue betwen the operators.

So it'll be pay-per-trip-by-cash or pay-per-trip-by-smartcard......

Now you've gone and depressed me. But hold on just a minute.....The MVV coordinates fare allocation between over 50 transport operators in Munich and surrounding rural districts. They proudly proclaim this on much of their literature that they stick through your door. See MVV for more details. It's something to envy when you're looking at it from here isn't it.

Quote from here : "The MVV (Munich Transport and Tariff Association) is a transport association that ensures the convenient and easy use of regional public transport (ÖPNV). There is only one timetable. One can travel throughout the entire association network with only one ticket and one pays according to the same tariff system, irrespective of how many transport companies’ services one uses."

That's what we want. We can have it. Tough decisions need to be made. We need politiciams with the balls to make them. Do they exist?