In an article titled "New York’s Cabbies Like Credit Cards? Go Figure", Michael M. Grynbaum writes for the New York Times about how New York cabbies have grown to appreciate the benefits of payment card acceptance as they've emerged as "an unlikely savior for New York’s taxi industry." When initially introduced two years ago, cabbies were very unhappy with the requirement to accept cards. According to Grynbaum, all of that has changed.

Over the last few years, we've been watching various acceptance environments abandoning cash and moving to only card-based payments. Perhaps the best examples are the airlines - who moved over a relatively short period to eliminating cash acceptance for meals and drinks purchased in-flight. Now comes word from the Miami Herald in south Florida that Florida's Turnpike is being turned into a cashless toll road. "By February 2011, all cash collection on the Turnpike's southernmost stretch will end, and crews will begin tearing down every toll booth."

ReadWriteWeb takes a look at London's Oyster card, the RFID smart card used for electronic ticketing on London's public transport services.

In an article titled "Taxi Commission Says Credit Cards Help Drivers", William Neuman writes for the New York Times "that credit cards may be saving the industry from feeling the worst effects of the recession." It turns out that since all cabs in New York City are now equipped for credit card payments, "many corporations that once ordered black cars for their employees have begun telling them instead to take a cab (which costs less) and charge it." One in five taxi trips are being paid for using payment cards.

Cubic Transportation Systems has announced it is providing new capabilities for the Cubic designed Tri-Reader® to enable an all-in-one reader that will process bank cards, prepaid cards and smart card-enabled mobile phones through an exclusive software development and licensing agreement with ViVOtech, a provider of point-of-sale (POS) readers for contactless and Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile phone payments. READ MORE

The Utah Transit Authority is showcasing its new electronic fare collection system this week at an event held in Salt Lake City by the Smart Card Alliance. According to the UTA, "the new electronic payment system for the transit agency is the first full-system rollout of a transit payment system based on the open payment network." READ MORE

Moversa, a joint venture between NXP and Sony Corporation, has announced it will unveil its latest security chip – the Universal Secure Access Module (U-SAM) – at this year’s Mobile World Congress (16-19 February in Barcelona, Spain). According to the company, "the chip manages contactless smart card applications, regardless of protocols and operating systems, in Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled mobile devices. The potential of the U-SAM will be showcased on the NTT DOCOMO stand (Stand B117, Hall 8) in a demonstration featuring how multiple applications based on different contactless technologies, can be accessed on one mobile handset." READ MORE

MasterCard and RATP have announced that "they are cooperating at developing the functional and technical requirements and feasibility of using MasterCard PayPass contactless payment cards to access public transport services." According to MasterCard, "the goal is to help French and foreign travellers gain faster access to public transportation by simply taping their MasterCard PayPass bank card in front of a validator. In association with la Banque Postale, lab and field tests could also be conducted in the course of 2009."

[Editor's note: Today seems to be the day for contactless transit payments - apparently the new "killer app" for contactless. Earlier, Visa also announced trials of its PayWave contactless payments as part of a strategy focusing on transit payments. Since widespread deployment contactless acceptance is a precursor to supporting local mobile payments, transit payments may be emerging as an ideal, high-frequency acceptance environment for mobile payments - as it has been in Japan for several years.] READ MORE

As part of a strategy focused on enabling Visa card usage for transit payments, Visa has announced that it is working with the Los Angeles transit authority to allow train, subway and bus riders to speed through turnstiles and past fare boxes with a simple wave of their Visa payWave-enabled contactless card. In parallel, Visa Europe has announced it is collaborating with the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP), the major transit operator responsible for public transportation in Paris and its surroundings, to demonstrate that Visa payWave acceptance at a Paris metro fare gate is technically feasible. READ MORE

Creative Mobile Technologies (CMT) has announced a 10-year deal with Taxi Affiliation Services, a Chicago based company providing services to Yellow, Checker and Blue Diamond taxicabs in the City of Chicago. Yellow, Checker and Blue Diamond, together form the nation's oldest and largest continually operating taxicab fleet, and comprise 2,600 taxicabs in Chicago. CMT's deal will bring Chicago taxi passengers a credit card payment system in the rear seats of vehicles. READ MORE

The NFC Forum, a non-profit industry association that advances the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, has announced that it is sponsoring and participating in the Mobile Transactions Workshop at the Mobile Internet World Conference and Expo, October 22 at 2:30 PM, at the Boston, Massachusetts Convention & Exhibition Center. READ MORE

Libercard, ViVOtech and Inteligensa have announced they have "collaborated to develop the first Transit & Retail combination contactless payment implementation in Latin America. With the new technology, Brazilians in the city of Fortaleza use a single contactless payment card to ride local transit and make retail purchases. Libercard has enabled tens of thousands of transit riders with dual-purpose prepaid contactless cards to ride transit, pay for purchases and perform top-ups at several hundred retail stores in Fortaleza that use ViVOtech contactless payment devices implemented with Inteligensa integration expertise." READ MORE

Over on the Digital Money Forum blog, Dave Birch writes about a student In London who spends a whole day using just his Barclays OnePulse card - and then comes home to find his wallet (with his cash) on the kitchen table. Some believe that, in a few years, he wouldn't even need his card - just his ever-present mobile phone!

BART, First Data and ViVOtech have released the results of an NFC-based mobile payments trial conducted in the San Francisco area from Jan. 28 to May 30, 2008 - saying it demonstrates high use when both transit fare and retail payments are combined in the same phone. READ MORE

Duncan Graham-Rowe writes for Technology Review about the San Francisco Bay Area's FasTrak bridge toll system and the finding by a security researcher that "that the unique identity numbers used to identify the FasTrak wireless transponders carried in cars can be copied or overwritten with relative ease."

Eric Konigsberg and Sewell Chan report for the New York Times on failures on Monday and Tuesday of New York City MetroCard machines that were unable to handle credit and debit cards. They write: "The malfunction raised questions for riders about not only the efficacy of the MetroCard machines but also the larger notion of the American commercial culture’s movement toward an increasingly cashless existence." The outage also provoked this New York Times editorial complaining about the overall design of the MetroCard machines.

The BBC reports on a failure of the Oyster prepaid card system earlier today during the morning rush hour in London. A similar failure occurred two weeks ago.

VeriFone has announced that VeriFone Transportation Systems has added new programming, including People.com, to the content available on the interactive mobile information screens at the heart of its integrated payment and information system in New York City taxis. READ MORE

Chris Skinner blogs about London's Oyster card issued by Transport for London. He writes: "The benefits of the programme are multiple in terms of streamlining travel, reducing queues, minimising cash handling, reducing the possibility of fraud by customers and cash theft by staff, and generally improving the customer experience. Having said that, the biggest benefit is the £60 million reduction in annual operating costs for TfL of the ticketing system since implementing the Oystercard."

The Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council has announced publication of a new white paper, "Serving Unbanked Consumers in the Transit Industry with Prepaid Cards” , that examines how transit agencies can serve "unbanked" or "underbanked" individuals, including both the traditional approach of establishing retail sales outlets for fare media and a potential new approach of using network-branded prepaid cards. READ MORE

The Emerging Payments Research Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has published a new paper titled "The Contactless Wave: A Case Study in Transit Payments" by Nasreen Quibria, Senior Payments Industry Consultant. READ MORE

Saying that they "forecast that transportation applications will be essential to the take-off of NFC services on mobile phones", Gemalto has announced that it has been selected by TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile), a telecom operator in Italy, to support the launch of an new NFC (Near Field Communication) program in Trento that enables transport applications embedded in the SIM cards to allow TIM customers to use their mobile phone as a convenient access and payment device for public transportation. READ MORE

Just listened to a fascinating talk at today's Digital Money Forum in London by Ronnie O'Toole, Chief Economist of the National Irish Bank. Last November, the bank provided a pre-budget submission to the Irish Department of Finance that contained four recommendations about how to reduce inefficiencies in the Irish payment system (Dave Birch blogged about it here). One of the four recommendations was to require that taxis in the country be equipped to for card-based payments as a compulsory measure. We've seen other examples of where transit payments have been the focal point for shifting from cash to electronic payments. Glenbrook's Carol Benson blogged about her experience with card-based taxi payments in New York City late last year.

Barclaycard has announced plans to issue over one million contactless cards this year across the UK. Barclaycard began issuing contactless enabled cards in London in September 2007 with the launch of Barclaycard OnePulse, the 3-in-1 card featuring Oyster, credit and contactless payment functions.

The Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council has published a new white paper titled "Co-Branded Multi-Application Contactless Cards for Transit and Financial Payment" that describes "an approach that leverages co-branded card marketing programs and the multi-application capabilities provided by smart card technology. The white paper is intended for mass transit agencies that are considering implementing a new contactless fare payment program or enhancing an existing program through collaboration with the financial community. It is also intended for financial payment card issuers, processors, and service providers who are considering working with mass transit agencies."

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has announced it will "partner with NJ TRANSIT to undertake an eight-month pilot test that will allow customers to use contactless bank cards, key fobs, cell phones and other devices to pay for transit. The test will help determine if customers could ultimately use these devices to pay fares on all of the region's transit systems, including New York City's subways and buses." Contactless payment will be available exclusively to MasterCard PayPass customers during the initial two months of the test and to other bank-issued contactless card customers for the balance of the test period.

BART has announced that "a select group of BART riders is helping to launch a first-in-the-nation technological trial that will allow participants to walk up to any BART fare gate with a specially-equipped Sprint wireless phone and pay for their ride by tagging the phone on a reader located on top of the gate."

Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson spent a few days over the New Year's holiday in New York City - and files this report on using her debit card along the way.

GlobalPlatform has announced that its core device specification – also known as the GPD/STIP Specification – has been deployed in China through the Blue Bamboo H50 Terminal in the recent launch of the Beijing transit card contactless micro-payments scheme.

According to the Smart Card Alliance, "the vigorous take up of contactless payment in the United States and its future in mobile phones, plus a Mount Sinai Medical Center initiative to give patients control of their own health and hospital registration information, highlighted the Alliance's annual conference."