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Comment by dheera | Hacker News Reader

I feel like 99% of people would not benefit from single use public transportation tickets. Even if you are a tourist, if you use public transportation once, there is a high likelihood you will use it multiple more times, in which case it makes sense to get a regular card. Most systems let you return the card and get the deposit back if you'd like.

Personally I collect the cards instead because I have a tendency to revisit cities years into the future. I just wish cities wouldn't make their cards expire so damn quickly. Wuhan's metro is nice, the cards don't expire until 10 years later. But I've found Singapore and Taipei expire within 3 years and you lose your stored money.

I have this "brick" of public transit cards for about 20 cities. It feels powerful. I kind of wish I could just swipe this brick in any city and just go. Unfortunately they all interfere with each other.

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I’m pretty sure that the Montreal paper tickets are non-refillable but can “contain” multiple rides or a pass (weekend, weekly, etc) if you buy them together.

I’d bet a lot of them are sold at the airport: the fare to downtown comes with a 24-hr pass for other buses and metros.

I don't know how many times I've been in a city for a single day, or part of one, and have zero interest in spending precious minutes finding, buying, and returning a card.

Just let me pay with coins, or a credit card in seconds, with no return work.

I believe Singapore's public transit does support tapping a credit card directly at the gates now, but there's an annoying step of having to register your card in advance on an app before it actually works.

My guess is this might be because on-the-fly credit card authorizations still take too long. Waiting 3 seconds for an EMV contactless verification would seriously hold up the line at rush hour in a country where most people live by public transit.

If I were to guess, the registration is probably what enables them to pre-authorize a credit line and allow you to tap in in a fraction of a second.

Credit cards do not require online authorization.

Interesting, and this hypothesis shows why twmp cards might be preferred.

I have no issue with temp cards, if I can buy them right at the pickup location. I once flew into a place late at night, and only stores had cards to buy, and all were closed.

Duh.

Yeah that's a stupid system and I've seen it in many places. Being asked to go to <some random convenience store> to get the official public transit card, even the dude at the station couldn't sell me one.

The vending machines at every station should be capable of directly vending public transit cards. I think most of the better systems around the world do work that way.

That is a flaw of Singapore's system. Other places let people use contactless credit cards without any delay.

London has been using contactless for a while.

That's odd. Most open-loop transit payment systems I know give new/unknown cards the benefit of the doubt, and put the card on a block list if it turns out to not be good for the fare that's eventually distributed to all readers.

Are you sure that's true? Their website says otherwise:

> Do I need to sign up for a SimplyGo account to use my contactless bank card for transit? You do not need to sign up for a SimplyGo account to use your contactless bank card for transit.

OK, it's confusing, I had seen some other information that suggested app registration was necessary. It seems that it's only necessary if you want to track your journeys which makes sense.

> there's an annoying step of having to register your card in advance on an app before it actually works.

Did this change recently? I travelled a little over a year ago and my Wise card worked right after I landed at the Singapore airport.

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