It was bad enough having captive service stations and restaurants for overpriced products, but the toll was and still is ridiculous too, considering it was agreed there would be no toll after the construction was paid for, And it was well paid for decades ago.
Anyway there were only very few exits and they were mostly rural until you got to South Florida where you could get off and on every few miles. The captive service stations needeed to be built at the same time as the Turnpike or everybody would run out of gas back then.
Except Orlando which was a very small city before Disney came in, but their gas stations were still closed late at night and on Sunday.
Tickets were reverse engineered in a completely analog way.
The "main entrance" to the Turnpike coming south was out in the middle of nowhere where the I-75 freeway keeps going to Tampa but you smoothly get over to the main gates of the Turnpike if you want to head down to Miami instead. You would just breeze on through and pick up a ticket at the northernmost gate, and the further you traveled south, the more toll you would have to pay when you got off.
Students would get off of I-75 avoiding the Turnpike and drive on the rural roads about a half-hour until you get to the next Turnpike entrance and pick up a (very valuable) ticket there instead of at the main entrance to the north.
As you got down toward the Palm Beach area, where the northbounders and southbounders still shared the gas stations and restaurants in the central plazas, many northbound travelers would willingly trade tickets from wherever they got on in South Florida for one which will only cost them as much as if they got on at the very last chance before hitting the northernmost exit.
Northbounders would then get off right where they were going to anyway, one exit away from where we got on, and we would get off one exit away from where they got on, and everybody came out ahead, paying the minimum tolls possible.
It took a long time before any toll-takers started looking at the tickets and asking "why did it take 6 hours to only go one exit?"
It's hard to come up with a perfectly fair system. Tolling every road is expensive and tax on fuel has its own trade offs.
I feel the no toll approach is better.
Most importantly because no toll means (the feeling of) more privacy, toll means you're being tracked. Regardless of law we all know that everything eveywhere gets stored indefinitely independent of country (if not legally then illegally if not by the toll org then by the secret service).
Secondly the country I was in with the toll approach had worse infrastructure.
Thirdly, when looking at government spending as a whole, road infrastructure (in a non tollroad country) is really not that big of an expenditure as far as I know?
Forthly, a country may (and some do) still tax road-users only by just taxing car ownership periodically. No need to invade privacy for that through toll booths or even worse: mandatory tracking devices (countries in Europe are pushing for the latter). Added bonus: you can trivially put a tax on relatively polluting vehicles if you like and use that to subsidize less polluting vehicles.
Do you also think the same about parks? Or schools? Or police? Or healthcare? Or water? Or rail? Or defence?
Toll roads are a holdover from times of reduced state capacity when the best and only way to tax something was to force it to go through a physical chokepoint.
They don’t call HOV/toll lanes “Lexus Lanes” for nothing.
Even if you already own a car, it is in general more expensive, inconvenient and maybe even slower to choose to drive to work. As a general rule of thumb, driving long distances costs about the same as taking the shinkansen for one person, is slower and makes more sense once you have 3+ people in the car.
I think overall this is fair and leads to much better outcomes than US-style "it's my right to drive and park for free where ever I go, but I will fight any proposal to improve or subsidize transit because 'my taxes!'".
In Houston about $95 per month was about all the market could stand to commute on a modern 21st century tollway. Once it got over $100 it looked to me like it was beginning to become possible for an elected official to get in based on a promise to reduce or eliminate the tolls. I don't think that's been an issue yet but the tolls have recently been reduced for the first time ever.
Actually it's the unseen waste of resources that discourages me from driving any more than necessary, rather than the cost to me of operating a vehicle.
What you described doesn't have anything nonpublic or learned facts. Instead, it's a cooperation to fool someone into not having to pay for service. I'm not sure if it could even be called "cracking", since that typically involves learning new facts, too. Only "exploiting" comes to mind.
And engineering is over exaggerated too, more like the tickets were merely reversed not thoroughly reverse engineered.
We certainly weren't going to counterfeit any tickets.
Just work around the system.
Well do you know what's expensive? Highways. In the US less than 20c of every dollar come from road tax/fuel tax/tolls. The rest is paid by taxpayers, whether or not they use those roads, whether or not they drive, whether they drive a 3.5 ton SUV or a 1 ton "small" car. This is not even getting into the terrible externalities that car use entails.
Personal automobiles pay far too little.
>tolls should cease after initial amount is paid
A good ballpark is every ~30 years you spend, in maintenance, the same amount of money it took to build it in the first place.
Same with the QE2 bridge in the UK. Governments are disgusting.
https://www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/dartford-crossing...
What happens when you build a road and declare it done and then never deal with it again? Does it continue to work as a road after a few years?
> Governments are disgusting.
Who builds roads?
I noticed that the boxes were still broken and unmaintained. I put 2 and 2 together and realized that a mobile "upgrade" was coming soon, so I kept my eyes out. And sure enough, I got myself invited to participate in the pilot project with the upgraded app.
The deadlines slipped twice but the pilot began in mid-January. So far I have not had glitches with scanning or boarding. But let me tell you.
There are disclaimers in the FAQ. Since the mobile passes are QR-based and not NFC, they absolutely require WAN connectivity on both sides in order to activate a pass. My initial testing indicated that a loss of connectivity will not invalidate an active pass, because it's endowed with a built-in expiration countdown. But we shall see.
The FAQ also says straight out, of course, that the customer must keep the phone charged in order to use the pass. Of course it goes without saying that your phone must be functional in order to scan the thing. So that's a whole tech stack that could go awry and strand you if you don't take precautions.
Hey, this may reduce fraud and friction at the farebox. I don't know. Many people will love not having another thing to lose or the convenience of purchasing passes without going somewhere (they cost way more on board a bus.) But the Luddite in me doesn't want this. I'd much rather carry around an old reliable paper-based pass, and I will go back to that for as long as I can get away with it.
But I won't turn down a $75 gift card to play along with the pilot test.
It could go awry if Google fucked up, Samsung/phone manufacturer fucks up, battery or charger fucks up, software developer fucks up, internet, etc, etc.
we are replacing reliable sustems with fragile ones everywhere
It was their billing system, you couldn't pay cash, they had no way to record it.
QR code as transit passes aren’t great but eventually the worse designs will fade out. NFC is a way superior piece of tech and way faster too - just tap your phone and go. I was pleasantly surprised that transfers worked seamlessly this way too.
Checking in, they can charge you minimum fare and checking out they can charge you remainder.
They could also charge you maximum fare and return remainder on checkout.
You can even keep track of card and give discounts for multiple rides.
All without registration. Works with watches and phones too.
I think they set up a special protocol with Visa and Mastercard to allow this.
One of my so-called friends just carried around an expired credit card, and rode the bus with impunity. The fare box accepted anything that seemed legit. So it's reasonable to see why that sort of payment method was discontinued with prejudice.
(Of course there's no reason not to bring it back with connectivity improvements, but they'd rather push mobile fares at the expense of something actually convenient to people in the economic bracket of "transit rider".)
It works with tap cards, both debit and credit. Can even be used to get in and out of the parking by tapping at the boom gate at entrance/exit.
You can buy a special Gautrain card that uses the same hardware. But the only benefit of the dedicated card is for folks that travel frequently, as you can buy discounted prepaid fare, something like 40 trips to be used in 20 days, for half price.
Only real risk is if you carry both a credit and debit card, and mix them up during the scan in/out process. They then charge maximum fare on both cards.
Also seems difficult for children who don't generally have credit cards.
Source: on a train in Tokyo right now
The Pasmo/Suica cards are intriguing, they are NFC, but also store the last few transactions on the card itself, there are also mobile apps for scanning these cards to see how much credit you have left and list the above-mentioned transactions.
Why they rolling out QR-based public transit ticketing in 2023 when NFC (which all phone platforms support even with a flat battery) solutions are table-stakes now?
And unsurprisingly only a subset of tickets are available on the apps. Therefore the government gets its “fare simplification” it’s so badly wanted, through the back door, in a sense, the harder it pushes mobile tickets
Eg rover tickets are not on the ticketing apps. These can be excellent value.
Edit: also the government very recently announced [0] they are to scrap return fares. This will without a shadow of doubt increase prices for a great many journeys.
[0] https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/end-of-the-line-for-ret...
I bought a single-use one-way subway ticket recently. When I got to the turnstiles, none of them had slots to swipe or insert the ticket.
Of course, it's 2023. You can tap the paper ticket as if you had a refillable or monthly pass, it has the RFID circuitry sandwiched between paper layers. No more mechanical moving parts which can break and slow down the rush hour commute.
I don't belive the ticket apps being discussed keep a balance, but I haven't used them myself.
As already shown in this thread, even the employees don't understand the very complicated fare rules. My manager was very proud of winning a half hour long argument with a ticket inspector about the Conditions of Carriage, but most of us just want to buy a ticket and go.
I know what will happen. We're at the stage of the PR spiel where they acknowledge there will be some losers but overall it "will benefit the majority". That will silence any critics. Then when it's being implemented, it'll turn to "we always knew there would be some winners and losers (dropping the "it will benefit the majority" part). Then a couple of years after the change, it will be: we regret how much it's affected a lot of people, but it's here now, and we're using all the extra revenue to invest in the railway. Like something out of Yes, Minister
Given the list of issues with our rail system currently, I'm not sure abolishing return fares should be high up on the list.
Or give everyone a national fare allowance to boot, like the national subsidy for maintenance of roads and their other associated costs.
For example, you can ask any UK rail operator to book you a trip that includes sections run by other operators. So your purchase needs to be fed through a centralized revenue-splitting system (called LENNON iirc) anyway.
Then they got the feature request that you should be able to book specific seats and someone else shouldn't be able to book the same seat, and so on. This just can't be decentralized.
This setup does have the advantage that they can check tickets without needing a network connection, but I'd guess there would be simpler ways to add that to a centralized system.
I disagree.
> This setup does have the advantage that they can check tickets without needing a network connection
This is the most important reason why it is implemented this way. Checking happens on rowing handheld devices which have frequently no good internet connection. Even in the turnstiles where you would think they could afford a reliable connection if said connection goes down you can’t block the flow of people.
Reliability and speed of checking was clearly the most important features they optimised for. Security, in the sense that passengers can’t just mint tickets for themselces, is a close second.
The beauty is that every centralised reporting can be deffered. In case the centralised database is down, or the checker’s network is down, you just store the timestamp and the signed ticket data and report it once things are working again. The centralised system doesn’t even need to trust the checker computers. Railway company A cannot mint a ticket from railway company B. They don’t have the keys to do that. So they cannot fraudelently divert revenue from each other. Neither accidentally nor intentionally.
> but I'd guess there would be simpler ways to add that to a centralized system.
I’m all ears. How would you do it simpler?
Train companies have a login to the ticket server to let them mint tickets.
Checkers, when offline just check the signature, and log to the central server later.
When online, they ask the central server for all other ticket details and check those.
Any ticket that is misused and isn't detected at the time is blacklisted, and that blacklist distributed for offline use. A blacklist of the 10 million most-misused tickets could perhaps be just 10 megabytes - easy to download/update every few hours over mobile internet.
Now, anyone can wrongly use a ticket just once, as long as they are sure the checker is offline. And if they are mistaken and the checker is online, or they reuse a ticket, they will get caught.
main benefit: tickets can be smaller (and therefore read far quicker). Tickets can also be cancelled easily. For example, train companies could send out promotional tickets which only charge you if used, and are cancelled otherwise.
But it’s probably not worth the hassle and once the ticket is sold you can have it be signed by the centralized system so you can verify the signature offline easily.
And with every clever decentralized solution there's another feature request that adds more complexity. I just remembered some trains have displays above seats that tell you if it's reserved.
Unfortunately, my skills weren't quite there at that point in my life, and I no longer live in Massachusetts, but this was an incredible read regardless and I feel at least a bit of closure now :)
The MBTA tickets had an option of color bars (so the conductors could just visually check if all of them match throughout all the passengers) and a QR option, so I would always try to figure out how it generates those colors, as the tickets had to be able to function offline, and as the tickets all showed the same colors regardless of passenger, they certainly weren't unique per-purchase nor used any user-unique info (though they may have been unique per-train-route).
I should take another look at it with this article as a resource.
Additionally the color bar screen has an animated timestamp too, presumably to prevent a (basic) screenshot attack.
And; although I've never had it scanned, I think if the ticket checker suspects something is up, they scan the qrcode for an online verification.
I took a large family group with me on one ride, and they did consistently check that I activated the right number of tickets.
Edit: Emphasized public and private keys
<q:01> s:196;u:296101284;i:14;c:JP4igg/YIyk03lYqnVcjFCQjDldUc7Th82Gjppb89S8I0vlCNIAYpzBgUESmeKmaaf2BHvlkuyd3opXXwEWsujuGqqakb09xrYWVlBeqY97qfwE1bynzs9FbGmG6HxnVmpM6AHROTBZa08ti/0KiR1oyKpZkrucBE9dJsJtz0qg=;x:49;
<q:01> s:196;u:297172367;i:14;c:pirqKynzF6wa7ttQJRtw8B5SfcQiWL5psEwju5OVjxLwG7hZKgJsii381A0l9hzcxsebxUJrK6Z1ZX22ILd/AMYOSx2DuQ2OHqrP5r8sNuVfMATrYOTbcioISrn/dBLN1vaQxEmZkTxLkE9837NGvsrlP7mF+BWYps3jqA/MfG0=;x:25;
Not as bad as a public API, but probably some degree of a personal safety risk given the security around MFC cards and the ability to ascertain pattern-of-life from the data
> $ curl -s 'https://device.theticketkeeper.com/download_keys?device_name=abc' | jq
> {
> "return_code": "error",
> "message": "Device not registered."
> }I'm fascinated by "transport billing" - it's such a complex problem, owing to the different infrastructure providers, different operators, fares, holidays, special events, and weird edge-case situations.
Except mobile tickets make fraud trivial - getting off the train without a ticket, at a station with a ticket barrier? Just show them your powered off phone and say 'my phone died' and they'll let you out, no questions asked.
If their priorities change, claiming your phone is out of battery seems unlikely to allow you to avoid a fine.
Of course, I suppose in 2023 you can always say you have no way to pay the fine without your phone...
I guess having a sex / gender field makes that kind of re-use slightly harder?
Edit: section 5.1.2
A model which of course assumed sex is strictly binary and having strangers of opposite sex in the same compartment is problematic, while having strangers of the same sex is unproblematic.
In Mumbai the local trains have separate wagons for women, which was nice. There was space, women who talked to me as as "sister" singing and making handicrafts. The other sections of the train were packed as sardines in a can, and men groping each other, in particular those with fair complexion. And please don't take this comment as xenophobic or as an insult against Indian people or culture in Mumbai, this is just how it is.
At the same time, the only time I have been actually hurt by sexual harassment by a stranger happened here in Finland when a girl high on something groped me in a techno party and tried to kiss me. I got amused first, but after a while I tried to detach her. No one come to help me even I yelled that please get this girl away from me. If it had been a guy, I would have kicked him to ground, but for a girl - I could not do anything apart from just trying to push her away. Eventually we both fell down stairs and my ankle got sprained.
In the UK, a guard with good eyesight and a sprightly, cheerful manner can almost run through the carriages shouting "tickets please!" and see, with a single glance, all s/he needs.
Then she gets to the muppets with phones. They faff, fumble and fuss. They scowl at being interrupted watching videos, browsing social media and listening to music. They can't load their app. They huff and sigh disrespectfully. The guard can't get focus. For a moment they point phones at each other like cowboys in a gunfight standoff. She doesn't have a wifi signal, so now there's a long and embarrassing delay while passenger and guard stare at each others feet.
Finally a joyful beep releases them from technological tension. Everyone in the car sighs with relief and she moves on to the next grinning smombie.
The whole technology is a festering shitshow foisted on people by over-zealous tech peddlers.
Paper tickets rule.
My local station doesn't sell tickets. It has no office. I can buy an advance then drive miles to a totally different station to print them out or just buy it on my phone even on the way to the station and be done with it. I guarantee you buying from the ticket inspector is slower than showing them my phone.
In general, transit systems do a pretty terrible job of usability testing for people who aren't so used to the system that it's second nature and may not even read the language.
I have my digital ticket ready when the guard's behind me, interrupting my video/HNing far longer than is necessary to do so, and everyone else is asking for 'X from <last station they can remember> please', cursing that this train actually had someone to call 'tickets please', as I feel like a mug for actually paying in advance every time.
Paper tickets suck. It's already a pain having to navigation the station to find your platform, and then add onto it trying to find a ticket machine. Make sure you get the right ticket machine because multiple train companies operate from this station!
And then you have to hold on to it for the duration of your journey and not lose it, otherwise you'll face the fine.
Could depend on when you travel I suppose.
Using your phone is much slower and there's a significant chance it'll just fail and hold up the person behind you (me).
I wonder if the Tube’s tap in tap out setup contributes to the issues you see.
There used to be a time where the oyster card was slightly faster than the phone in terms of registering at the barrier but that's improved a lot over time.
I don't live in London anymore but when I've visited it's been so good just tapping your phone through everything.
Additionally the hold ups at the barriers in my experience are more down to people's misunderstanding of the cadence required between each passenger. This applies to both oyster/card and phone, and is more of a UX problem of the barrier rather than the technology used to activate it
A dude was attempting to board, and I was hardly 10 seconds at the scanner when he urged me to get out of his way! It's bad enough when a magstripe pass doesn't scan on the first try... it's going to be murder if everyone's fumbling with their phones and apps and wireless connections.
From the article, it seems unlikely that a data connection is required to validate a ticket, except to prevent the same ticket being shown twice to different inspectors within a short timeframe.
If you want a true technological dystopia solution then the train car should be engineered in a way that nobody gets in or out of the car without a valid ticket. Like, make entrances a double-door, then you gotta swipe your ticket to board, deboard, go between cars while enroute, etc.
Today you can also have everything on your phone which then gets scanned withe QR-Code. BTW, this code changes every few seconds so screenshots don't work. You can also instead of purchasing a ticket do something that is called "check-in" where you check-in before you get on the train and a GPS type ticket is issues. At the end of the day the best possible rate for you is then calculated and your are billed. Downside is, you need to be "tracked" by the train company for this to work.
However the process to inspect tickets is again as fast or faster than it was before. In fact when someone has paper tickets (specifically papers from non-Swiss ticket offices (France, Italy etc.)) it can take longer.
There is also a rule if you can't present your ticket in a timely manner it's considered invalid. This never happens but when the conductor yells tickets please, get your phone out.
[1] https://www.swisspass.ch/new-swisspass?lang=en
[2] https://hymnos.existenz.ch/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/DSC037...
I've only ever had it checked by the barriers, I can't remember the last time I saw a conductor checking tickets on a train.
(e.g. York, or Edinburgh.)
People lose paper tickets. People throw them on the ground. Stations are littered with them. Oh, and people do spend ages looking through their pockets, bags, coats and other places for where their paper ticket is at.
You're just being contrarian because you're on a tech website, tbh.
Or just don't expect people who don't own a phone to own a ticket.
I don't see that. The ticket barriers are programmed to retain used tickets. And please lay-off the "contrarian" slurs, I'm just telling you what I see with my eyes each day. If you looked up from your phone you might notice too :)
More proof that Apple's walled garden is a scam: it fails to protect against the thing that its alleged purpose of existence is to protect against.
