I feel like I’ve already complained enough about the state of mobile telephone on this blog, particularly where it relates to roaming across countries, which just plain sucks. It’s not just mobile telephony, of course, it’s also public transport, where you have to get special discount cards per country, while we live in a so-called united Europe.

You don’t notice this so much within large countries, like France, Germany, and the US, but you definitely notice it living in the tiny Duchy of Luxembourg.  It is therefore an absolute must to a. negotiate higher wages when you start here, to compensate for those costs, and b. the lower taxes compared to the more socialist Netherlands are a nice bonus.

That said, THINGS MUST CHANGE !!! I feel, I cannot say this enough, but there is something very wrong if you go from an all-you-can-eat mobile internet contract for €27 – €50 per month, to paying something like €1 – €5 per MB of data as soon as you move 2 metres (6 feet) across the border!

I’m as against big corporations and government as the next guy, but in this case I favour more consolidation amongst mobile operators and public transport companies (even so, just because I have a T-mobile account in the Netherlands, doesn’t mean that I pay any decreased roaming fees in T-Mobile’s birth-country, Germany, no sir!).

Rather than consolidation, I am even more in favour of large networks infrastructures that are rented out at the same price to companies in different countries, which in turn act as nothing but a language interface for those services (at a minor surcharge). I think this is actually already happening, but the minor surcharge is really abused to the max. in most cases.

Whatever the case, Business-travel in Europe sucks (even more so globally, of course), and I feel that the only way to get around it now is to make more money (as if travelling was a luxury!?) or never travel at all, both of which are, to say the least, inefficient solutions to what should be a simple problem to solve. … as long as, of course, people of all nations get their heads out of their respective a##es (That’s right, I said a## on Tech IT Easy).

End rant,

Vincent
(Apologies for all the swearing. That’s really not like me.)

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

The coming weeks, I’ll be pretty busy with a business development project in the technology sector. As usual, I cannot discuss it in depth (ok, it’s Fight Club, we bash each other half to death every week and can’t talk about it), but I want to discuss some stumbling blocks that we’re sure to be hitting. To give you an idea, some of the questions are now:

• Patents and their limitations: while we have filed for a number already, the issues are whether there is prior art and how to deal with it, as well as whether patents are really enough protection against competitors. Since, I’ve attended a pretty interesting New Venture seminar last week on IP, I think that will be my next post.
• The usefulness of market research: I breached this topic before already, but I don’t believe in researching innovations that consumers cannot touch yet, and will instead focus on expert-input, I think, as well as getting a testable prototype ready as soon as possible (we’ll be looking for subjects!). I hope to have something more to write about it soon.
• Pricing strategy: this is really exciting! I’m reading the excellent book “The strategy and tactics of pricing” and am in the position to apply some of it’s lessons now. Thoughts about it to follow on Tech IT Easy soon, but to give you an idea, it’s about the battle between costs, what the competition charges, and what your customers want to pay for your product.
• Dealing with bureaucracy: Since, we’re going to be applying to an incubator, it might be interesting to see how that process goes.

In other, equally important news:

• Verteego: You may have noticed a new badge on our site. It’s the Verteego sustainability badge, which links to a report analysing our weblog. I’ll be trying to increase our grade a little there/here and will write about my impressions. I didn’t even know that I can take leave for pregnancy-reasons, wow!
• Public transport in the Netherlands: I don’t know how it is in your country, but we’re doing exciting RFID-related stuff here. Starting February, we’ll be going through the transition of going from a stamp to a beep, and I’ll write a little about my impressions here.

That’s all I can predict for now, and I hope to make it all a reality soon! Until the next time, on Tech IT Easy!

Vincent