August 18, 2013

Unclaimed public transport deposits a ‘goldmine’ for operators

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 4:23 pm

Telegraaf reports that public transport operators are making megabucks off of passengers that forget to swipe their public transport card (OV Chipkaart) when checking out.

The paper calls the thirty million euro that the companies pocket ‘a goldmine’. The OV Chipkaart system (basically a single-purpose electronic wallet) deducts a deposit when you check in and returns that money when you check out. That deposit is 4 euro for bus, subway and tram and ten euro for rail—twenty if you travel using an ‘anonymous’ card. According to Telegraaf, forgetting to check out happens approximately once every 100 trips.

The news follows hot on the revelation that the transport card seems to have led to considerable price hikes. RTL Nieuws reported two weeks ago that since the introduction of the card, fares have risen by as much as 48% (The Hague). Cities like Amsterdam and Groningen follow with rises of 38% and 20% respectively. For comparison, inflation in the Netherlands was around 4% during that period.

In July Dutchnews reported that rail users’ association Rover and travellers’ association ANWB had started a probe to find out exactly how much money passengers lose because of forfeiting their deposit. The results are expected in the autumn. Telegraaf does not say where it got its information, but instead cites ‘reliable sources’.

See also:

(Photo of public transport companies getting an ‘award’ for being the worst privacy offenders of 2010 by Sebastiaan ter Burg, some rights reserved)

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January 2, 2013

Free public transport on NYE in Rotterdam due to software error

Filed under: Technology by Orangemaster @ 11:46 am

On New Year’s Eve in and around Rotterdam trams were free of charge because the check-in devices were programmed to believe that the year 2012 was a leap year. Since nobody could check in using the right device (scan their cards), transport was free.

A traveller also commented that when he tried to buy a monthly travel card on 30 December 2012 from the appropriate vending machine, it would insist the year had to contain 2012 in it and did not recognise the year 2013.

Maybe the software was programmed by Mayans.

(Link: www.rijnmond.nl)

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March 10, 2011

Public transport chip card nabs two privacy breach awards

Filed under: General,IT by Orangemaster @ 11:55 am

The Big Brother Awards 2010 for the ‘worse breacher of privacy’ was awarded to Trans Link Systems (TLS), the folks who brought to you the disaster of a public transport chip card here in the Netherlands. Even the public’s choice award went to them for the double whammy. The card has been cracked every which way possible, but the makers pretend they have the situation under control, but they don’t.

From unnecessarily fingerprinting the Dutch for a passport to forcing visitors of the city of Haarlem to register their comings and goings by car with their licence plates, breaching people’s privacy in the name of safety is illegal as well as a very slippery slope. In the Netherlands, citizens’ movement Bits of Freedom continues to draw attention to these problems and has had some success.

What a weird idea: the government breaks its own privacy laws made to protect citizens in order to check whether citizens are breaking the law. That can’t be good.

(Link: nu.nl)

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January 30, 2011

RFID readers sold out after news of hackable transport card broke

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 1:51 pm

Trouw reports that the SRR220A RFID card reader is sold out in at least one webshop after word got out that hacking the Dutch transport card is both cheap and easy. The card reader will let you top up the card without paying.

Volkskrant adds that another online store, i-Pos, has sold hundreds. “It’s a mad house here, the orders are coming in day and night,” General Manager Dirk van der Heijden told the paper.

Meanwhile, Trans Link Systems (TLS), the besieged company behind the ill-fated Dutch transport card, refuses to warn users who forgot to swipe the card on check-out, Webwereld reports. The result is that many travellers are ‘fined’ 4, 10 or 20 euro every time they forget to check out—the amount depends on the deposit the transport company charges when you check in.

Dutch parliament told TLS that it has to send forgetful passengers an e-mail upon detecting the error. According to TLS, detecting the problem is a “technological impossibility”. Webwereld readers were quick to point out that just a few days ago TLS was boasting about how easy it is to detect use of a fraudulently topped-up public transport chip card.

Asking for a restitution seems to be an arduous task as well. Only in 1 in 18 passengers go through the trouble.

According to Dutchnews.nl, the province of Zuid-Holland has delayed the abandonment of paper bus tickets (the so-called Strippenkaart) due to the current problems with the transport card.

See also: Right to public transport refunds finite.

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January 26, 2011

Free and undetected travel with public transport chip card

Filed under: Technology by Orangemaster @ 1:24 pm

After a series of nasty blows, like bludgeoning some game monster that just won’t die, the Dutch public transport chip card has been given what mainstream media see as the kiss of death.

With a computer running Windows and a hacker’s program called LogicAnalyz3r, not only can you top up your chip card like there’s no tomorrow, but travel without any kind of detection. If you put fake money on a proper card, check in or out normally while it doesn’t register, you have yourself a ticket to ride.

“The gates and top-up devices don’t check whether actual money was transferred from the bank to your chip card. Cracking the card takes about an hour, after that, it’s just a matter of seconds.”

Yes, it’s in Dutch, but computer magazine PC-Active has written up the entire how to in a handy PDF.

TLS, the company responsible for the chip card kept saying this was ‘a hacker thing, and not for ordinary people’. If that’s not begging to be bludgeoned by hackers, I don’t know what it. TLS’ Financial Director was pathetically (yes, value judgement) quoted on telly yesterday as saying, “It’s forbidden, why would anybody do that?” Sure dude, nobody downloads from the Internet, that would be wrong.

Yes, NOS Dutch news item is in Dutch, but it’s all about the tech shown in the video.
‘Tampering with balance on chipcard is easy’

UPDATE: TLS is currently looking for a Security Officer & Fraud Manager (Thanks @AlexanderNL, @gronical!)

(Link: webwereld, Photo by Franklin Heijnen, some rights reserved)

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February 10, 2010

Right to public transport refunds finite

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:56 pm

Dutch public transport companies have forced a new payment system onto their users, the ‘OV Chipkaart’ (‘Public transport chip card’), and are now complaining that travellers do not understand how the system works.

Rather than buying a ticket, you have to hold a chip on a card to a reader, once for checking in and once for checking out. Not surprisingly, a lot of people forget to check out, and in doing so lose the deposit that was subtracted from their digital wallet when they checked in. Until now most transport companies have refunded these lost deposits, but nu.nl reports that the refunds won’t be given forever.

Bus company Connexxion told the news site: “We look at this on a case by case basis. If you bump your head often enough, you’ll eventually learn not to.” Qbuzz, another bus company, estimates that it will keep giving money back for only a few more weeks.

Metro company RET of Rotterdam reports that people forget to check out about 0.5% of the time. Since the deposit is higher than the average amount of money the transport companies expect to make on a single fare and they do not have to do anything in return, that’s going to be a nice windfall for them.

The previous system (Strippenkaart) had a built in moneymaker like that too, in that you had to buy several tickets at once, which would undoubtedly get lost in one’s sofa to emerge only when the last date you could use the card on had gone by. Although it was possible to buy a ticket for just a single trip, these tended to be a lot more expensive.

The introduction of the OV Chipkaart also seems to have gone hand in hand with price hikes, Dutch News reports:

The government is to assess whether the switch to the new public transport smart card has made using buses and trams more expensive, Trouw [newspaper] reports on Tuesday.

There are have been numerous reports of price increases in recent months but the introduction of the OV Chipkaart had been coupled with a government pledge that travel would not become more expensive.

Uselog describes a host of usability problems with the OV Chipkaart.

(Photo by Franklin Heijnen, some rights reserved)

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March 15, 2009

Bus stop betrays your weight

Filed under: Food & Drink,Gadgets by Branko Collin @ 12:15 pm

Fitness First, a global health club chain, fitted a bus stop at the Weena in Rotterdam with scales and a display that shows you your weight. The big question buzzing around the Web is, is this a funny gimmick or an unacceptable shaming device? The campaign was designed by ad agency N=5, and the video report is by NOS Headlines.

Via Gizmodo.

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June 10, 2008

NZH timetables using European comics

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 6:00 pm

The 24 Oranges crew visited the Stripdagen Haarlem last Sunday, where it was reminded of the special connection one of the sponsors has with comics. NZH is a public transportation company from 1880 (now part of Connexxion) which during the 1980s brought out timetable books that used covers drawn by comics artists—first Dutch artists, then the leading European ones. For ages now Dik Winter has had a site with these and similarly themed later covers from GVB, the Amsterdam public transport company.

NZH’s (and GVB’s) connection with comics likely stems from jonkheer (squire) André Esta’s love for comics. Esta was the NZH CEO in the 1980s, and in the 1990s he switched to GVB.

Shown here is Lucky Luke by Belgian artist Morris.

Photo below: a vendor’s stand at a sunny Grote Markt in Haarlem.

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