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Transportation

New York City Subway Now Supports Tap-To-Pay At All Stations (theverge.com) 47

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Thursday that it had completed the rollout of tap-to-pay scanners at all subway stations and on all of its buses throughout the city. From a report: The MTA has been installing the system, called OMNY, since May 2019 as part of a modernization effort to phase out the plastic MetroCards that have been in use since the '90s. The new tap-to-pay system is available at 472 stations and on 5,800 buses in total, the MTA said. [...] For now, you need a phone that supports NFC-based mobile payments in order to use the OMNY system. Later in 2021, the MTA will begin selling tap-to-pay cards that can be used in place of a phone -- an important addition since not all riders own a smartphone.
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New York City Subway Now Supports Tap-To-Pay At All Stations More

New York City Subway Now Supports Tap-To-Pay At All Stations

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  • You could consider putting little NFC devices into the chip in bank and credit cards, so that you can do "contactless" transactions (say up to $50) JUST WITH THE CARD. Like most of the rest of the developed world.

    • That exists in the US (to an extent) and has probably for 15+ years

      It took Apple Pay becoming mainstream for the reader infrastructure to exist.

    • You could consider putting little NFC devices into the chip in bank and credit cards, so that you can do "contactless" transactions (say up to $50) JUST WITH THE CARD. Like most of the rest of the developed world.

      My VISA card has had that "Pay Wave" for years. I used a hammer and hole punch on the NFC chip ...

    • you can do "contactless" transactions (say up to $50) JUST WITH THE CARD.

      Then I have to carry my cards around with me, rather than just paying with the phone that is already in my pocket.

      How is that an improvement?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AuMatar ( 183847 )

        You lose smart phones, leave them at home, leave them at your desk, etc. You don't do that with a wallet, because you only take it out of your pocket when paying for something. No thanks, I don't want any payment method on my phone. I want cards.

        • What's a "wallet"?

          Do you mean the pouch on the back of my cellphone that I use to hold my DL and a $20 bill?

      • Re:And then after that... (Score:5, Informative)

        by linebackn ( 131821 ) on Friday January 01, 2021 @04:41PM (#60885336)

        you can do "contactless" transactions (say up to $50) JUST WITH THE CARD.

        Then I have to carry my cards around with me, rather than just paying with the phone that is already in my pocket.

        How is that an improvement?

        Oh, let's see, just off hand:
        - Your smart phone is much more likely to get stolen than a card.
        - When smart phone technology arbitrarily changes next year, you should not have have to upgrade you card.
        - Similarly, when cell phone vendors decide to change things, the agency who implemented the system is not held hostage.
        - Smart phones are more likely to get hacked than some card.
        -These cards don't need charged up irreplaceable batteries, do they?
        - If you live simplistically and do not own a smart phone, then you are not forced to spend the extra money on a smart phone and cellular service.
        - There are likely accessibility issues with cell phones that are not issues with some simple card.
        - Since a card should be made of less complicated materials and should not need constant replacement, it is better for the environment.

        I could could go on, but no one would listen because everyone is so in love with their cell phones.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Improv ( 2467 )

          Do you somehow not have a modern cell phone?

          • I have a modern cell phone and I can't pay with mine. It turns out that Google arbitrarily decided to not support my country despite it working in the past, Samsung decided to arbitrarily not support this particular phone despite the previous model working, and my bank's pulled their own payment app as well because they (less arbitrarily) decided it cost too much to be worthwhile.

            Having a modern phone doesn't protect you from anything the GP posted.

      • Then I have to carry my cards around with me, rather than just paying with the phone that is already in my pocket.

        You can still get home if you run out of power.

        Also cards are smaller and more robust and don't require authentication so you won't be the muppet with the iPhone holding up the queue for the bus fumbling with your screen for a £1.50 transaction.

  • How have you not had this for 20 years already? I thought everyone had contractors travel cards.

    • Old infrastructure, processes, and contracts that takes nearly a decade to replace for minor value add. One could just as easily say why aren't we using sub-dermal implants? Similar reasoning.

      • Except lots of people don't want sub dermal implants so that's a daft answer.

        London's transport system isn't exactly new, but they upgraded the system to allow contactless cards in 2014 across them entire network.

        • And most of the NYC taxpayers who fund the transit system didn't want to spend the monies to upgrade sooner. These upgrades aren't cheap.

          Atlanta did theirs 10+ years ago. It took them many years to do the full conversion. But their system is extremely simple with basically two lines of service ~100miles long.

          Americans simply just do not care about public transit. I have used NYK, NJ, and PA transit systems. They run on shoe string budgets with periodic bailouts. They unsurprisingly suck compared to Europe

          • Why are taxpayers relevant? Just run the subway at a profit like in Tokyo.

            • Because the US doesn't run their transit systems like other countries. They run on bare-bone operating budgets which don't have slots for these kinds of expenditures.

              But if this rail system was turned over to a Japanese system, it would still fail. These types are lines are not profitable in Japan either. Over there, they make up for it by feeding the profitable long range segments and their retail shops. The latter of which (cross segment ownership), the US wouldn't allow within our lax regulatory framewo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Isn't local news on Slashdot fun? Especially when it's decades old tech.

  • I enjoy the challenge of the Metrocard. Getting it to register on the first try is mildly thrilling, second only to snagging the last seat in a crowded car.

  • I still have a couple of the old NYC tokens on my keychain. When I lived in NYC it was nice to know that you could still get home if you got mugged.

    Man, I am getting old.

    • The fact that that is a normal thing to expect in a supposedly leading modern first-world city, boggles the mind.

      • The fact that that is a normal thing to expect in a supposedly leading modern first-world city, boggles the mind.

        New York crime in the Eighties was like the street beheadings that you folks have now.

  • Cell phone salesmen (Score:4, Interesting)

    by linebackn ( 131821 ) on Friday January 01, 2021 @04:23PM (#60885286)

    So why didn't their tap-to-pay cards come first? Right, trying to cell cell phones.

    What are non-cell/smart phone lovers supposed to do right now? Die?

    I don't own a smart phone, don't want one, and don't need one. Anyone who comes up with some arbitrary fake "need" like this is evil and needs to be shot.

    • Get the yearly / monthly unlimited card?

      • what if someone only needs occasional ride? Here in Chicago we have vending machines where cash can load a temporary card

    • Re:Cell phone salesmen (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mitreya ( 579078 ) <mitreya@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Friday January 01, 2021 @05:22PM (#60885444)

      I don't own a smart phone, don't want one, and don't need one.

      I do own a cell phone, but I do not want everyone to have their app on my phone. If only Android had the option to "supply fake data"/"sandbox" for everything these apps want to have access to before installation.

      Anyone who comes up with some arbitrary fake "need" like this is evil and needs to be shot.

      They are not even subtle about it.
      My hair salon keeps pushing for "Install our app to safely pay for your visits". But a credit card on file miraculously works, too.

    • What are non-cell/smart phone lovers supposed to do right now? Die?

      No, they'll continue swiping their MetroCards. The MTA added tap-to-pay to all turnstiles; they didn't remove the card readers.

      According to TFA, the swipe readers will stick around until 2023, at which time they'll be selling disposable NFC cards for non-smartphone users.

  • What will NYC call theirs?

  • They have to make people willing to ride the subway again. Between homeless people sleeping on most of the seats and non-enforcement of most crimes that should be a pretty tall order.

  • I alway keep hearing "Basic physics forbids it, YoU iDiOtT!", but never any actual explanation how. Which leads me to conclude they do not actually know, and merely parrot a dogma... that might be right or wrong, but not that they understood why. Just like almost no video on YouTube that "explains" magnets even mentions the relativistic effects and spin that are the root causes, yet they all think they are so much smarter than those clown rappers.

    From what I understood, the best I could gather was "somethin

    • It doesn't matter if you eavesdrop. Each transaction is cryptographically fresh. Replay doesn't work.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amorsen ( 7485 )

      You assume perfect security. Of course you can do relay attacks on NFC payments. However, banks either have amount limits or pattern-based limits on NFC payments, so it is really difficult to steal any significant amount. In addition, you will be on camera doing it, so if you try to up your game with a lot of small thefts, you will get caught.

      Perfect security is not necessary, especially when the gains are so low.

  • The TFA only mentions that OMNY works with NFC-equipped smart devices. But it also supports contactless bank/credit cards.

  • Welcome NY to the modern world, you are only 24 years after SK's Upass and 23 years after HK's Octopus card.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

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