by Commuting Boston Student
octr202 wrote:There is no US commuter rail system with a traditional fare collection system using smart cards. Some west coast systems (Caltrain and Sounder, not sure if others do yet) accept their regional cards, but even if they don't have vending machines at every stop, they do have to have validators for tag on/tag off at every stop, thus certainly requiring much of the infrastructure to put in TVMs anyway. They also have (in addition to far fewer stations to worry about) a completely different fare system, since it's proof-of-payment with roving inspectors and random checks. There's merits and disadvantages to both systems, but for now I think it's pretty unlikely for the MBTA or other northeastern "legacy" commuter railroads to shift away from conductor-based fare collection/inspection. The cultural/organizational change on large systems like these might be almost as difficult as installing TVMs at every stop on these far flung systems.There's nothing particularly special about the CharlieCard technology that distinguishes it from any other RFID system, and there's nothing (other than cost) that would inhibit the use of handheld RFID readers by onboard conductors to validate tickets loaded on the card. This is not either/or - you don't have to implement systemwide POP to put CharlieCards on the commuter rail. All you need to do, in fact, is outfit every conductor with a portable card reader - which is more than doable, and doable cost-effectively with technology in widespread use today.