Cubic Pioneers Smart Cards In North America

International Railway Journal, Feb, 2000 by David De Kozan

"Our goal is to support one-ticket transport throughout the Malardalen region regardless of the carrier used," says Mr Jonas Falk, SJ's project manager. "Contactless ticketing will make public transport faster and simpler for commuters. It is also the first step towards a seamless mass transit system that unifies travel by train, bus, and metro." The Malardalen region has a population of 3.5 million and includes Stockholm and the towns along the shores of Lake Malaren.

Schlumberger will initially integrate ticket machines for smart cards and paper tickets and provide contactless Easyflow smart cards. The smart cards will be suitable for single journeys, weekly and monthly passes, and e-purse schemes. The system will be designed to cope with Sweden's planned national e-purse project called CASH.

Modul System Sweden is the local project leader and will head the development of a credit card reader to enable the smart cards to be recharged or used to pay for travel. The reader will conform to the Swedish Local Transport Association's payment standard.

Wayfarer Transit Systems will prepare ticket validators for contactless ticketing, and be responsible for the manned machines which will recharge and create the smart cards as well as issue conventional tickets.

Mifare Contactless Interface Platform

ACCORDING to Philips Semiconductors, its Mifare interface platform is used in 85% of all existing contactiess smart card schemes with several new projects underway. More than 45 million card integrated chips and 450,000 read/write units are in use.

Philips Semiconductors is a member of the International Standardisation Committee for Contactless Smart Cards and supports an open standards approach. Philips will continue to ensure total compatibility across the Mifare platform and between systems so that smart card systems can be upgraded for multiple applications.

Mifare has a single reader platform which allows any Mifare compatible smart card to he read by any Mifare reader. An independent Mifare Certification Institute, operating under the authority of the Austrian Testhouse arsenal organisation, certifies cards and terminals to ensure that certified Mifare card products from any supplier will work correctly with any certified terminal from another supplier.

Philips has a range of products based on the Mifare architecture platform covering contactless smart card integrated chips, with Light for single applications and Standard for multiple-application cards, as well as dual interface integrated chips with Mifare Pro and Mifare Prox.