Recently, the city of Rotterdam introduced a mandatory way of paying for public transport, using RFID-cards, called OV-chipkaart. This system will eventually be deployed across the Netherlands. This blog post describes my experience with it.

First you have to be aware that, much like in any city, public transport is an umbrella-term that describes busses, trams, trains, and metros (or subways). The RFID cards don’t yet work on trains, you have to check and uncheck yourself for any of the other options. You cannot get into or out of the subway station without doing that, while that is not the case on busses and trams, where you do have to check yourself in, but nobody prevents you from not checking out. Confused? Good, so are plenty of other people.

When you check yourself in, the machine automatically takes of 4 euro from your card. When you check yourself out, the amount that you haven’t used is deposited back. So if you forget… you just lost a few euro, because most trips don’t exceed the 1.50 euro mark. You can’t forget this in the subway, as you can’t enter without checking in, and you can’t leave without checking out—there are human height gates that prevent this (see pic). And the system works fine. On busses and trams, on the other hand, you have to check yourself in, and you have to remember to check yourself out, as there is no one to stop you from leaving without doing so. Confused? Good, so are plenty of other people.

I’m not sure why this system was put in place in such a way:

• one reason might be practicality: instead of giving a destination at the beginning, the check-out machine decides what your destination ends up being. That way, there’s no confusion and no long queue at the beginning of people entering their destination into a machine.
• a second reason might be technical / a privacy issue: it would be optimal if I got on a bus and, without touching the machine, the money would be taken from my card, and vice versa when I leave the bus. It’s more than likely a privacy concern as RFID-chips can have a maximum range of ca. 320 feet (=100 m).
• a third reason might be that subways are the no. 1 way to travel in Rotterdam: I don’t believe this is the case, especially since this system will be rolled out to cities where there aren’t any subways.

I very much dig the idea of RFID, as I like its efficiency, both from a user and a supply chain perspective. The flaw in this system is contextual design. While it works perfectly in subways due to the gate system (as well as in trains, where they are installing similar gates), there is too great a chance of forgetting to check out on other means of public transport. Last night at 11 pm in Amsterdam, the tram was filled with people that where “on something,” and how many of those are very likely to forget to check out? A 4 euro a pop, you’re entering London tube tariffs, which, everyone agrees, are astronomical, especially if you have to pay for that every day.

The only practical solution I see for this problem, is for there to be gates installed in busses and trams, so that people don’t forget to check out. So far, this has not happened and it comes at the expense of travellers who, while being trained to be stupid (don’t worry, the card takes care of everything), now have to be aware of their actions at the beginning and at the end of the journey. And believe me, when this system is rolled out across the Netherlands and perhaps even your country, there’s going to be an exponential increase in complaints, as tons of people will have forgotten to check out and will have lost 3 euros in the process. Good for the government’s short-term cashflow, but definitely creating more overhead in terms of support-costs.

Build those damn gates!

Vincent

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Premise: A while ago, Fred Wilson, a (possibly biased) tech-investor, wrote that he was bullish on the tech-industry. Recently, the New York Times reports that e-commerce is up because people want to travel less (fuel costs). And previous stories reported on the migration of advertising revenues from traditional media to online media.

A note: I don’t know that there will be a recession. I know that the real-estate bust in the US is a pretty big deal, and that banks from Europe and Asia have been pretty heavily invested in that supposed goldmine. And any fall-out in the US, i.e. banks shutting down or otherwise, will likely have global repercussions on the banking-sector, and affect other industries also.

With that out of the way, three problems/phenomena I associate with these times are:

• A lack of accountability in investments (e.g. currently real estate and previously startups & Enron), also accompanied by emotions like fear & greed.
• Rising input-costs (the market should normally adjust for that, but the explosive growth in demand from emerging countries + the lack of an alternative for, in this case, fuel, make this a pretty big uncertainty)
• Changing paradigms, such as the rise of webware, the (expected) fall of hardware-prices, the possible fall of software-sales, the continuing displacement of brick & mortar business models, businesses being forced to go & think green, and much, much more.

So, there’s probably a few more symptoms (throw them out in the comments!), but it seems to me that the internet is pretty well placed to deal with some of these problems.

Let’s start with accountability. The strength of the web is that everything on it is digital and, in theory, nearly (*) everything can be measured (*: I am quite sceptical about the measurability of video & audio, though arguable the serious data is still in text). Added to this, there are technology-shifts, like digital television, mobile computing, and E-Ink, which make it easier to have a wider reach as a data-gatherer, not to mention that business are increasingly placing their data online, again facilitating data-exchange in partnerships. This should make it easier for businesses to base their expense on actual data, the same for investors and advertisers. Together with the consequences of the last internet-bust, I think that everyone is pretty careful to base their decisions on information, not hopes and dreams (well, I’m still sceptical about Twitter).

Next, rising input prices. Having blogged on the topic of food and retail for about a year, I’ve obviously had to follow this trend/reality quite a bit. The NYTimes heading I linked to above summarises my feelings quite well, customers are looking at the opportunity cost of fuel (as well as the cost of being green) and alternatives like e-commerce may seem much more attractive. In the long-term, people like James Howard Kunstler are calling for more and more “locality,” i.e. that people will be willing to migrate less for work and, I guess, shopping, which opens up opportunities for e-commerce and ways of working across a distance.

Finally (?), changing paradigms. Well, whatever the new world looks like, a pretty warm place is reserved for the web. Web-apps and -services are maturing, offering more and better features, and providing individuals and businesses with a comfortable ecosystem to operate in. The OLPC, the Asus EEE, and other cheaper systems (when Dell comes in, it will be mass), may be less powerful, but they will be optimised to use the web most of all. Societally, it may eventually become the logical choice for the mainstream to spend less than $500 for a laptop, in which case hardware-makers and, possibly, software-makers will suffer. But the web won’t. Similarly, while I don’t yet see brick & mortar disappearing, it is clear that eventually 99% of B&M businesses will have to have an online presence. About the world going green, I can’t sell everything, perhaps someone else can give the answer to that.

Is the internet recession-proof? My guess is as good as the next guy. But, more efficient use of computing, datamining, search, advertising, e-commerce, and logistics are all technologies I am extremely bullish on these coming years.

What do you think?

Vincent

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