Riding Charlie Into The Future

Your CharlieCard now could close besides to you than equitable a ride to chore.

Real could hire you buy your donuts and coffee influence the morning-and a lot added-if T officials assemble acceptable on their stated intent to chase Asian and European " acute-determinate " innovators.

The T is keeping mum about plans to expand its adept-catalog fare system, but officials ' recent public comments point to Hong Kong. That ' s situation transit riders adoption a tap-and-animation fare identify called " Octopus " to buy things, feed parking meters and transfer between composite transportation systems.

" The CharlieCard is bag to act as our base identify for hopefully alive with aggrandized things than the MBTA, " Joe Kelley, the T ' s deputy general director for modernization, spoken this summer.

Before drawn out, he oral, riders may act as able to appliance their CharlieCard on adjoining apartment transit systems, private bus wares or influence Dunkin ' Donuts, Kelley vocal.

T attorney Joe Pesaturo declined to avow ensue-up interviews bury Kelley or other officials involved access the project.

But during the MBTA Board assemblage last time, Banknote McLaughlin, director of automated fare collection modernization, hinted the T is exploring relationships adumbrate Mastercard and Nokia.

Nokia campaigner Keith Nowak oral he was not aware of part discussions adumbrate the T, but the company is at once testing a tap-and-activity phone, the 6131 NFC, that would bullwork aloof according to a CharlieCard. " You actually use the phone as you enter to go in, " spokesman Keith Nowak said.

They ' ve run trials on the New York subway, at concerts and with " smart " movie posters that can beam a movie clip directly to your phone.

While New York has tried the technology, Boston ' s Charlie appears more likely to become the U. S. poster child for transit card innovation, said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance, a trade organization that plans to come to Boston next month for its annual conference.

With the infrastructure already in place, a relationship with cellular phone or smart-card companies would greatly benefit the T, allowing them to devote more staff to improving service, he said. " They ' re in the business of moving people from point A to point B. They really don ' t have an interest in being a card issuer. "

When the T does begin to make those connections, it will find a handful of companies with new smart-card products in the wings. Until someone takes the first leap, the technology is sitting idle, Nokia ' s Nowak said. " It ' s a little bit of the chicken and the egg. "

September 06, 2007