- Email: [email protected]
New Railway Ticket System Using Contactless IC Cards
Copyright © IFAC Transportation Systems, Tianjin, PRC, 1994
NEW RAILWAY TICKET SYSTEM USING CONTACTLESS IC CARDS
K.GOTO*, H.MATSUBARA* and K.SASAKI* "Railway Technical Research Institute, 2-8-38, Hikari-cho , I\ okubunji-shi, Tokyo 185, Japan
Abstract. New Contactless IC cards have been developed for realizing new railway ticket systems in Japan. There are two types of cards , one card uses midium wave radio and includes a microprocessor, another card uses microwave and includes an ASIC chip. Several tests are executed for the evaluation of these cards. The results shows that the new system has enough ability to realize more user services, good performance operation and several countermeasures for dishonest users. Key Words. Railways; transportation ; automation ; microprocessors; telecommunication; IC cards; radio communication
1. INTRODUCTION
1993(Sahlsten,1994). And London Transport has commenced a public service trial using contactless smart card at Harrow district(Torode,1994).
In Japan, major private and municipal railways have adopted automatic fare colle.ction(AFC) systems in these twenty years. In Tokyo Metropolitan Area, JR East Railway Company, the largest of the companies , privatized and separated from the old Japanese National Railways , began to introduce the AFC system extensively in 1990, and the other railway companies are following suit. Although the system is widely accepted by most passengers, some, especially among users of season tickets who dominate urban areas in Japan, complain about it. The current system uses magnetic str}pe or coated tickets for information storage media. A passenger must take his ticket out of the holder, insert it into the slit on the gate, pick it up from the ejector , and put it back into the holder. A solution to the problem is to use contactless IC cards.
In Japan, Railway Technical Research Institute(RTRI) also is developing a new railway ticket system using contact less IC cards and executed several field test in cooperation with East Japan Railway Company. Two types of contactless le cards have been developed , one using medium wave radio and the other using microwave as communication means (Goto et ai, 1989: Miki et alJ 991) . "Contactless" leads to establishment of a new ticket system, named a "customer-based " system against the conventional system which may be called a "trip-based system".
2. NEW RAILWAY TICKET SYSTEM
2.1 Advantages of Contactless IC Cards
There are several attempts to use IC cards or "smart" cards as tickets of transportation services in the world . In transportation systems the contactless type card is especially important. As for railways, London U nderground( Grimsey,1990) , Paris Underground, and Netherlands Railway(De Boer,1994) have already executed field tests for examination of feasibility. Though the cards used in these tests are different one another , they are all contactless IC cards. Concerning bus services, Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council executed a trial using several different type IC card in 1992-
Recently, IC cards have gradually come to find widespread applications . In transportation , a few companies began to use or test. IC cards as bus tickets and in other applications (Gotz,1990; Sutton,1990; Slevin ,1990). These cards are either contact type or restricted cont.actless type whose communication distance is very short . However , in spit.e of their inherent superiorit.y to magnetic cards, their cost bars their wide use . Moreover , their handling speed is not. fast. enough for use at.
801
a crowded railway gate . Particularly in Japan , wher~ eighty passengers go through a manned gate every minute during morning rush hours , processing speed is vital for practical use. The contact type smart card itself seems neither to resolve the above passenger inconvenience nor t.o ·cont.ribut.e to company management.
2 .2 New Ticket Systems using IC Cards
Most railway systems depend on the ticket system , wherein the ticket is the evidence of a contract having been signed between passenger and the company to carry him. Once a passenger ends his trip and goes out of the station, he is out of the system until he buys a ticket again as a new customer. The pattern makes the system a hotbed of frauds . If he had his own card , and the history of rides were recorded on it. he would not dare t.o cheat . Moreover , the railway company could greatly reduce it.s hidden duty load.
If t.he t.icket could communicate with the automatic gate speedily and without contact. the above inconvenience would be resolved and t.he railway company could fully exploit the advantage of smart cards . The contactless card not on ly offers the passenger a convenient way of passing t.hrough the gate , but. also brings the following advantages to the railway company.
If the railway company finds out a "good customer" , it may appreciate him by deduct.ing fares in post.-payment syst.em . In prepaid system , it may refund a part. of th e fare or give a premium when he adds credit. t.o his card for the next time . This means a fundamental change in the ticket fare system. because t.he fare is decided not by th e trip only but also by th e financial contribution of the customer. In contrast to the conventional "trip based" system, the new system might be called the "customer based" system. The contactless card would be th e most suitable for th ese systems.
Forgery IC circuits are very difficult t.o forge for ordinary people. Moreover, a company can freely int.roduce a security code into the syst.em . Fraud Card information is not only read by th e gat.e , but also updated . Thus , illegal use of the card is easily detected . Of course the same count.ermeasure is available with the magnetic syst.em against. frauds . However , if a manned gate is ret.ained for long distance passengers (it is necessary now in Japan) , the commu ter is apt to prefer it., because of the bother involved in handling t.h e magnetic season ticket.s, and the railway cannot. compel such a passenger to go through the automatic gate. This means that perfect checking is in reality very difficult in Japan .
3. CONTACTLESS IC CARDS 3.1 Basic Characteristics
The objective of a contactless ticket is to offer more convenience to the passengers . However , unlimited freedom is not. realistic for the system. So, it will be necessary for passengers to show the ticket to the machine, just as they do at a manned gate. There are two major reasons for this:
If it. were as easy for t.he passenger to go through an automatic gate as to go through a manned one , the company could ask him to prefer the automatic one . Even if he refuses and goes through the manned gate, a checker set at the gate can inspect his card automatically. It will be inexpen~ve and free from maintenance , compared to automatic gate with doors , because all parts are electronic.
The first is the reliability. A narrow separation between card and card reader increases the reliability. If the separation is set too wide, unexpected side effects may occur between cards and wrong gates. The second reason is a psychological one. Although it would be convenient for a passenger to pass through t.he gate without any special action, especially when he carries a bulky baggage, it may not be so comfortable if he feels "body-checked" by the machine. It is important for the passenger to indicate his intention to go through the gate by bringing his ticket close to the sensor. Thus the first target in communication separation between card and reader was set at 30cm and the process time was set at 0.2 second to cover a normal person walking at a pace of 1.25m/s. Two types of cards have been developed . Their tentative specifications are shown in Table 1. The length and t.he width of cards are
System Integrity In an open ended railway like Japan , the AFC is difficult to adopt , because it is financially impossible to install gate machines at all t.he stations . Such a system must. retain manned gates for passengers coming from outside of the system, making cost. reduction ineffective. The electronic checker just mentioned above can be installed at. a station which is too small to warrant the expense of installing the automatic gat.e. Thus, the "automated " area will be greatly expanded unlike the magnet.ic system, so that the system virtually becomes closed.
802
those~f ISO standard and the thickness of type 2 is that of ISO standard.
Table 1 Tentative Specification of Cards
Item Radio frequenc Az mm Size Weight g CPU Battery byte Memory Distance cm Speed kbps Process Time sec
Type 1 Medium wave 170k and 400k 54 x 85x 1.4 11 yes yes 256 <30 12.8 0.2 - 0.4
Type 2 Microwave 2.45G 54x85xO.76 8 no yes 512-2k < 50 >100 <0.1
3.2 Medium Ware Card
Fig.l Medium wave cards contain microproc essors which are activated when a card comes near th e gate and receives a polling pulse from it. The card uses its microprocessor to behave "intelligently". It receives from the gate information about station , date , time and kind of gate etc. , decides by itself whether it is permitted to go through the gate and returns an appropriate response to the gate. Fare information is given by the gate and the value is deducted from th e card. if it has a stored fare function. This scheme not onlv reduces the load of gate process, but also redu~es the transmission of necessary information between card and gate. Moreover, it possesses an important feature that a new ticket will be easily planned , without changing the program in the gate machines.
Microwave card
information necessary for the gate t.o judge its validity and/or its fare is calculat.ed in the gate. Th e results and other information are sent forth from the gate and recorded on the card. The same data is sent back to the gate for verification and t.he gate doors are controlled accordingly. The card and gate exchange information at a speed of mor e than 100 kbps . Another import.ant point is its cost. Supposing as many cards are consumed as t.here are Japanese season tickets , which amount to 20-30 million a year in the Tokyo area , the cost would be sufficiently cheap . This card system has been developed in collaboration with Sony Corporation.
Another important role of the microprocessor IS for system security. To prevent an illegal at tempt an authentication procedure between cards and gates has been implemented. It uses data encry~on- on a special test card. As properly issued cards and proper gates have specific cryptographic key, an illegal user could not forge the card nor falsify data in proper cards. Though this authentication procedure needs extra time, it has been confirmed that the extra time shares a very little portion of the total card processing time.
Thus. the two cards have their own merits. The microwave card is suitable for a large scale application, like that of season tickets or stored fare tickets. A new type of tickets , combining the above two functions in a single card, will offer an elegant system for both passenger and railway. The medium wave card may be used for high e r grade services , with additional functions.
4. GATE MACHINE
This card system has been developed in collaboration with Mitsubishi Elect.ric Corporation.
Figure 2 shows the configuration of new automatic ticket checking gate. This gate machine was basically developed for processing current magnetic coated tickets . It has sufficient functions to process a large amount of Japanese passengers during rush hours effectively, such as sensing locations of a passenger in the aisle, high speed ticket handling and control of door flaps. A large number of this type machines are installed at hundreds of stat.ions in Tokyo Met.ropolitan Area now.
3.3 Microwave Card
Microwave cards do not. contain microprocessors, but. ASIC chips for high speed data exchange and system security. Figure 1 shows a microwave card . When a card acknowledges the polling, it. responds to the microwave pulse and sends back
803
test have made us confirm the feasibility of the new system .
Contactless Unit . -----------------------. ,
,
ReaderWriter
Fig.2
Table 2 shows a result of this test during rush hours. There were about 2500 transactions in this test including current magnetic ticket users. Several errors happened because of a few software bugs in the card and the gate machine. These malfunctions have been already eliminated now. The gate can pass about eighty people per minut.e if all of them have contactless cards.
Controller
Configuration of gate machine
Table 2 Result of Field Test. at Ueno St.ation 1\1agnetic ticket users Contactless card users Success Error Total users
1649 816 762 .')4 246.')
5.2 AlJai/abzlliy test at RTRJ Though cards are considered to haw sufficient functional abilities for practical applications , it is necessary t.o check the long time availability of the system. A time recording system for t.he test use of con tactless cards has been developed and in operation since April 1992 at RTRI. The cards used in the system are medium wave cards. The time recording system offers an opportunity to examine the reliability and feasibility of card before adoption in the actual railway AFC system. The operation of the system will be continued for two years. The information acquired in the test period is used for improvement of cards and related machines.
Fig3. Usage of a gate machine
To make it possible t.o handle contactless cards too. ' contact unit' have been connected to current gate machine by parallel communication interface. Using this interface, 'contactless unit' and ' main gate' can communicate necessary information and process contactless cards in addition of magnetic tickets effectively. By this configuration, current machines installed at stations can be easily improved as dual mode(magnetic and con~actless) machines and to reduce the cost of introducing new services. Figure 3 shows an automatic fare checking gate and the manner of using a card.
Figure 4 shows the configuration of the system. There are four reader/writers(R/Ws). Two R/Ws are set at the entrance gate of RTRI and the other two R/Ws are set on the wall in the lobby of the main building. When a user holds this card close to a R/W, the card and the R/W communicate by radio. The R/W get.s the identification number of the user from the card and records it together with the time. The card updates its data with the information from the R/W. The R/W control computer collects data from four R/Ws and sends them to two other machines, which are the OA host computer and the laboratory computer for data analysis.
5. TESTS AND EVALUATION
5.1 FIeld Test at Ueno StatIOn On February in 1992 a rest.ricted 2-day field test at Ueno St.ation was executed. The station is one of t.he largest. stations of J R East in Tokyo Met.ropolit.an Area. The objective of the t.est is to examine the functional abilities of the new card system in the field . The cards used in the test are medium wave cards. Reader Iwrit.ers were attached t.o t.he exist.ing magnetic gates as ment.ioned above. Even during rush hours the gates showed a good performance. The result.s of the
In this test many useful data have been acquired. These are concerning weak points of physical structure of the card and some problems about. user interface( ex. indication t.iming of results of card processing).
804
Computer Room
Our Laboratory
Other Divisions/Laboratories
OA System Host Computer
Computer for Data Analysis
OA Terminal Computers
LAN(Ethernet)
R/W Control 1--_ _---.--_ _ _ _---,r-rv_l_o_d_em_L_i_n_e~----__r----___, Computer
Fig.4
~------y'------~
at Lobby
at Administration Division
at Entrance Gate
Configuration of test system
100 90
~
0 .........
....ro (])
80
distance
70
--_1---
60
-·0· -
~
~
en (])
50
u
40
en
30
U :::J
_. -
20cm(Micro Wave)
t
15cm
• . 10cm
~
Limit of Measurement
20cm(Medium Wave)
_ ..... - 15cm
20 _ . -0-.'
10
10cm
0
1
1.5
2
2.5
moving speed(m/s) Fig.S
Result of performance test
805
3
3.5
5.3 B..asic Performance Test
Flynn, B.(1994). The Dublin Bus Scheme . Proceeding of 7th Annual International Smart Card Conference and Exhibition , 56-63
Figure 5 shows the relation between success rate and the moving speed of cards. Because of the restriction of t.est tools , the maximum moving speed of cards was limited at 3.2m/s in this test. The microwave card shows a good performance (it can be used at the moving speed more than 3.0m/s if t.he distance is below 15cm) , whereas the medium wave card is the second to the microwave card in speed.
Goto, K ., Miki, S., Okimura, Y. , Tokui, K. and Tutui , E.(1989). Development of a Contact-free IC Card for Railway Ticket Systems . Proceedings of International Conference on Control, Computers , Communications in Transportation, 45-.51 Gatz, R.(1990). The German "Fahrsmart." System. Proceedings of Internatzonal Conference on Automatic Fare Collection In Public Transport , 201-224
In anot.her test the communication error rate of the medium wave card has been confirmed to be below 5 x 10- 5 . which is requested for magnet.ically coated t.ickets in Japan, in conditions of t.he distance of 20cm and t.he moderate moving speed. Both cards proved the feasibility as the railway ticket. system and other similar applications.
Grimsey, C.( 1990) . London Transport : Perspective. Proceedings of International Conference on Automatic Fare CollectIOn In Public Transport. 261-280 Leas , J .W.(l990). North American Experiences with Automatic Fare Collection. Proceedings of International Conference on Automatic Fare Collection in Public Transport , 107-122
.').4 Large Scale Field Test
To gather more data about t.he feasibility of the new card system . a relatively large scale field test. was executed(summed up in Table 3). Eight stat ions selected for this test are all located in Tokyo \Ietropolitan Area. Four of them are in residential areas and others (including Tokyo Station) are in business areas. Cards used in this test are microwave cards(type 2), because it is necessary to compare t.he t.est data with those of medium wave card tests described above. Data acquired in this test about the system reliability and a lot of user opinions will be ut.ilized to develop a real full scale new card system. The results are now analyzing.
Miki, S ., Nagai . N. , Matsubara , H. , Yoshino , H. and Goto , K .{l991). Contact-free IC Cards for New Railway Ticket Systems. Proceedings of International Conference on Applications of Adlianced Technologies in TransportatIOn Engineering, 414-418 Richards, M.C.(1990) . Advanced Magnetic Ticketing Systems and Their Application in Singapore.Proceedings of International Conference on Automatic Fare Collection in Public Transport , 83-106
Table 3 I\letropolitan area test Stations Gates Users Period Cards
Sahlsten, H .(1994) . The Results of the Helsinki Bus Trial. Proceeding of 7th Annual International Smart Card Conference and Exhibition , 39-.5.5
8 18 about 400 Feb. t.o Mar. 1994 Microwave( type 2)
Slevin, R.(1990). The Milton Keynes Experience with Smartcards in UK. Proceedmgs of InternatIOnal Conference on A utomatic Fare Collection in Public Transport , 225-242
6. CONCLUSION Sutton , D.(1990). Single Smartcards for a Multiservice and Multioperator System: The case of La Plagne, France. Proceedings of International Conference on A utomatic Fare Collection in Public Transport, 427-442
This paper reports on the current technological status of our contact.less IC card system and shows that they are quite appropriate for practical use. A New t.icket syst.em is expected to come into use in the near future based on new cards.
Torode, R.(1994) . A Smart Card System for London's Buses . Proceeding of 7th Annual International Smart Card Conference and Exhibition, 31-38
7. REFERENCES
De Boer, W.(1994). Transport Cards in the Net.herlands. Proceeding of 7th Annual International Smart Card Conference and Exhibition, 74-i7 806
NEW RAILWAY TICKET SYSTEM USING CONTACTLESS IC CARDS
K.GOTO*, H.MATSUBARA* and K.SASAKI* "Railway Technical Research Institute, 2-8-38, Hikari-cho , I\ okubunji-shi, Tokyo 185, Japan
Abstract. New Contactless IC cards have been developed for realizing new railway ticket systems in Japan. There are two types of cards , one card uses midium wave radio and includes a microprocessor, another card uses microwave and includes an ASIC chip. Several tests are executed for the evaluation of these cards. The results shows that the new system has enough ability to realize more user services, good performance operation and several countermeasures for dishonest users. Key Words. Railways; transportation ; automation ; microprocessors; telecommunication; IC cards; radio communication
1. INTRODUCTION
1993(Sahlsten,1994). And London Transport has commenced a public service trial using contactless smart card at Harrow district(Torode,1994).
In Japan, major private and municipal railways have adopted automatic fare colle.ction(AFC) systems in these twenty years. In Tokyo Metropolitan Area, JR East Railway Company, the largest of the companies , privatized and separated from the old Japanese National Railways , began to introduce the AFC system extensively in 1990, and the other railway companies are following suit. Although the system is widely accepted by most passengers, some, especially among users of season tickets who dominate urban areas in Japan, complain about it. The current system uses magnetic str}pe or coated tickets for information storage media. A passenger must take his ticket out of the holder, insert it into the slit on the gate, pick it up from the ejector , and put it back into the holder. A solution to the problem is to use contactless IC cards.
In Japan, Railway Technical Research Institute(RTRI) also is developing a new railway ticket system using contact less IC cards and executed several field test in cooperation with East Japan Railway Company. Two types of contactless le cards have been developed , one using medium wave radio and the other using microwave as communication means (Goto et ai, 1989: Miki et alJ 991) . "Contactless" leads to establishment of a new ticket system, named a "customer-based " system against the conventional system which may be called a "trip-based system".
2. NEW RAILWAY TICKET SYSTEM
2.1 Advantages of Contactless IC Cards
There are several attempts to use IC cards or "smart" cards as tickets of transportation services in the world . In transportation systems the contactless type card is especially important. As for railways, London U nderground( Grimsey,1990) , Paris Underground, and Netherlands Railway(De Boer,1994) have already executed field tests for examination of feasibility. Though the cards used in these tests are different one another , they are all contactless IC cards. Concerning bus services, Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council executed a trial using several different type IC card in 1992-
Recently, IC cards have gradually come to find widespread applications . In transportation , a few companies began to use or test. IC cards as bus tickets and in other applications (Gotz,1990; Sutton,1990; Slevin ,1990). These cards are either contact type or restricted cont.actless type whose communication distance is very short . However , in spit.e of their inherent superiorit.y to magnetic cards, their cost bars their wide use . Moreover , their handling speed is not. fast. enough for use at.
801
a crowded railway gate . Particularly in Japan , wher~ eighty passengers go through a manned gate every minute during morning rush hours , processing speed is vital for practical use. The contact type smart card itself seems neither to resolve the above passenger inconvenience nor t.o ·cont.ribut.e to company management.
2 .2 New Ticket Systems using IC Cards
Most railway systems depend on the ticket system , wherein the ticket is the evidence of a contract having been signed between passenger and the company to carry him. Once a passenger ends his trip and goes out of the station, he is out of the system until he buys a ticket again as a new customer. The pattern makes the system a hotbed of frauds . If he had his own card , and the history of rides were recorded on it. he would not dare t.o cheat . Moreover , the railway company could greatly reduce it.s hidden duty load.
If t.he t.icket could communicate with the automatic gate speedily and without contact. the above inconvenience would be resolved and t.he railway company could fully exploit the advantage of smart cards . The contactless card not on ly offers the passenger a convenient way of passing t.hrough the gate , but. also brings the following advantages to the railway company.
If the railway company finds out a "good customer" , it may appreciate him by deduct.ing fares in post.-payment syst.em . In prepaid system , it may refund a part. of th e fare or give a premium when he adds credit. t.o his card for the next time . This means a fundamental change in the ticket fare system. because t.he fare is decided not by th e trip only but also by th e financial contribution of the customer. In contrast to the conventional "trip based" system, the new system might be called the "customer based" system. The contactless card would be th e most suitable for th ese systems.
Forgery IC circuits are very difficult t.o forge for ordinary people. Moreover, a company can freely int.roduce a security code into the syst.em . Fraud Card information is not only read by th e gat.e , but also updated . Thus , illegal use of the card is easily detected . Of course the same count.ermeasure is available with the magnetic syst.em against. frauds . However , if a manned gate is ret.ained for long distance passengers (it is necessary now in Japan) , the commu ter is apt to prefer it., because of the bother involved in handling t.h e magnetic season ticket.s, and the railway cannot. compel such a passenger to go through the automatic gate. This means that perfect checking is in reality very difficult in Japan .
3. CONTACTLESS IC CARDS 3.1 Basic Characteristics
The objective of a contactless ticket is to offer more convenience to the passengers . However , unlimited freedom is not. realistic for the system. So, it will be necessary for passengers to show the ticket to the machine, just as they do at a manned gate. There are two major reasons for this:
If it. were as easy for t.he passenger to go through an automatic gate as to go through a manned one , the company could ask him to prefer the automatic one . Even if he refuses and goes through the manned gate, a checker set at the gate can inspect his card automatically. It will be inexpen~ve and free from maintenance , compared to automatic gate with doors , because all parts are electronic.
The first is the reliability. A narrow separation between card and card reader increases the reliability. If the separation is set too wide, unexpected side effects may occur between cards and wrong gates. The second reason is a psychological one. Although it would be convenient for a passenger to pass through t.he gate without any special action, especially when he carries a bulky baggage, it may not be so comfortable if he feels "body-checked" by the machine. It is important for the passenger to indicate his intention to go through the gate by bringing his ticket close to the sensor. Thus the first target in communication separation between card and reader was set at 30cm and the process time was set at 0.2 second to cover a normal person walking at a pace of 1.25m/s. Two types of cards have been developed . Their tentative specifications are shown in Table 1. The length and t.he width of cards are
System Integrity In an open ended railway like Japan , the AFC is difficult to adopt , because it is financially impossible to install gate machines at all t.he stations . Such a system must. retain manned gates for passengers coming from outside of the system, making cost. reduction ineffective. The electronic checker just mentioned above can be installed at. a station which is too small to warrant the expense of installing the automatic gat.e. Thus, the "automated " area will be greatly expanded unlike the magnet.ic system, so that the system virtually becomes closed.
802
those~f ISO standard and the thickness of type 2 is that of ISO standard.
Table 1 Tentative Specification of Cards
Item Radio frequenc Az mm Size Weight g CPU Battery byte Memory Distance cm Speed kbps Process Time sec
Type 1 Medium wave 170k and 400k 54 x 85x 1.4 11 yes yes 256 <30 12.8 0.2 - 0.4
Type 2 Microwave 2.45G 54x85xO.76 8 no yes 512-2k < 50 >100 <0.1
3.2 Medium Ware Card
Fig.l Medium wave cards contain microproc essors which are activated when a card comes near th e gate and receives a polling pulse from it. The card uses its microprocessor to behave "intelligently". It receives from the gate information about station , date , time and kind of gate etc. , decides by itself whether it is permitted to go through the gate and returns an appropriate response to the gate. Fare information is given by the gate and the value is deducted from th e card. if it has a stored fare function. This scheme not onlv reduces the load of gate process, but also redu~es the transmission of necessary information between card and gate. Moreover, it possesses an important feature that a new ticket will be easily planned , without changing the program in the gate machines.
Microwave card
information necessary for the gate t.o judge its validity and/or its fare is calculat.ed in the gate. Th e results and other information are sent forth from the gate and recorded on the card. The same data is sent back to the gate for verification and t.he gate doors are controlled accordingly. The card and gate exchange information at a speed of mor e than 100 kbps . Another import.ant point is its cost. Supposing as many cards are consumed as t.here are Japanese season tickets , which amount to 20-30 million a year in the Tokyo area , the cost would be sufficiently cheap . This card system has been developed in collaboration with Sony Corporation.
Another important role of the microprocessor IS for system security. To prevent an illegal at tempt an authentication procedure between cards and gates has been implemented. It uses data encry~on- on a special test card. As properly issued cards and proper gates have specific cryptographic key, an illegal user could not forge the card nor falsify data in proper cards. Though this authentication procedure needs extra time, it has been confirmed that the extra time shares a very little portion of the total card processing time.
Thus. the two cards have their own merits. The microwave card is suitable for a large scale application, like that of season tickets or stored fare tickets. A new type of tickets , combining the above two functions in a single card, will offer an elegant system for both passenger and railway. The medium wave card may be used for high e r grade services , with additional functions.
4. GATE MACHINE
This card system has been developed in collaboration with Mitsubishi Elect.ric Corporation.
Figure 2 shows the configuration of new automatic ticket checking gate. This gate machine was basically developed for processing current magnetic coated tickets . It has sufficient functions to process a large amount of Japanese passengers during rush hours effectively, such as sensing locations of a passenger in the aisle, high speed ticket handling and control of door flaps. A large number of this type machines are installed at hundreds of stat.ions in Tokyo Met.ropolitan Area now.
3.3 Microwave Card
Microwave cards do not. contain microprocessors, but. ASIC chips for high speed data exchange and system security. Figure 1 shows a microwave card . When a card acknowledges the polling, it. responds to the microwave pulse and sends back
803
test have made us confirm the feasibility of the new system .
Contactless Unit . -----------------------. ,
,
ReaderWriter
Fig.2
Table 2 shows a result of this test during rush hours. There were about 2500 transactions in this test including current magnetic ticket users. Several errors happened because of a few software bugs in the card and the gate machine. These malfunctions have been already eliminated now. The gate can pass about eighty people per minut.e if all of them have contactless cards.
Controller
Configuration of gate machine
Table 2 Result of Field Test. at Ueno St.ation 1\1agnetic ticket users Contactless card users Success Error Total users
1649 816 762 .')4 246.')
5.2 AlJai/abzlliy test at RTRJ Though cards are considered to haw sufficient functional abilities for practical applications , it is necessary t.o check the long time availability of the system. A time recording system for t.he test use of con tactless cards has been developed and in operation since April 1992 at RTRI. The cards used in the system are medium wave cards. The time recording system offers an opportunity to examine the reliability and feasibility of card before adoption in the actual railway AFC system. The operation of the system will be continued for two years. The information acquired in the test period is used for improvement of cards and related machines.
Fig3. Usage of a gate machine
To make it possible t.o handle contactless cards too. ' contact unit' have been connected to current gate machine by parallel communication interface. Using this interface, 'contactless unit' and ' main gate' can communicate necessary information and process contactless cards in addition of magnetic tickets effectively. By this configuration, current machines installed at stations can be easily improved as dual mode(magnetic and con~actless) machines and to reduce the cost of introducing new services. Figure 3 shows an automatic fare checking gate and the manner of using a card.
Figure 4 shows the configuration of the system. There are four reader/writers(R/Ws). Two R/Ws are set at the entrance gate of RTRI and the other two R/Ws are set on the wall in the lobby of the main building. When a user holds this card close to a R/W, the card and the R/W communicate by radio. The R/W get.s the identification number of the user from the card and records it together with the time. The card updates its data with the information from the R/W. The R/W control computer collects data from four R/Ws and sends them to two other machines, which are the OA host computer and the laboratory computer for data analysis.
5. TESTS AND EVALUATION
5.1 FIeld Test at Ueno StatIOn On February in 1992 a rest.ricted 2-day field test at Ueno St.ation was executed. The station is one of t.he largest. stations of J R East in Tokyo Met.ropolit.an Area. The objective of the t.est is to examine the functional abilities of the new card system in the field . The cards used in the test are medium wave cards. Reader Iwrit.ers were attached t.o t.he exist.ing magnetic gates as ment.ioned above. Even during rush hours the gates showed a good performance. The result.s of the
In this test many useful data have been acquired. These are concerning weak points of physical structure of the card and some problems about. user interface( ex. indication t.iming of results of card processing).
804
Computer Room
Our Laboratory
Other Divisions/Laboratories
OA System Host Computer
Computer for Data Analysis
OA Terminal Computers
LAN(Ethernet)
R/W Control 1--_ _---.--_ _ _ _---,r-rv_l_o_d_em_L_i_n_e~----__r----___, Computer
Fig.4
~------y'------~
at Lobby
at Administration Division
at Entrance Gate
Configuration of test system
100 90
~
0 .........
....ro (])
80
distance
70
--_1---
60
-·0· -
~
~
en (])
50
u
40
en
30
U :::J
_. -
20cm(Micro Wave)
t
15cm
• . 10cm
~
Limit of Measurement
20cm(Medium Wave)
_ ..... - 15cm
20 _ . -0-.'
10
10cm
0
1
1.5
2
2.5
moving speed(m/s) Fig.S
Result of performance test
805
3
3.5
5.3 B..asic Performance Test
Flynn, B.(1994). The Dublin Bus Scheme . Proceeding of 7th Annual International Smart Card Conference and Exhibition , 56-63
Figure 5 shows the relation between success rate and the moving speed of cards. Because of the restriction of t.est tools , the maximum moving speed of cards was limited at 3.2m/s in this test. The microwave card shows a good performance (it can be used at the moving speed more than 3.0m/s if t.he distance is below 15cm) , whereas the medium wave card is the second to the microwave card in speed.
Goto, K ., Miki, S., Okimura, Y. , Tokui, K. and Tutui , E.(1989). Development of a Contact-free IC Card for Railway Ticket Systems . Proceedings of International Conference on Control, Computers , Communications in Transportation, 45-.51 Gatz, R.(1990). The German "Fahrsmart." System. Proceedings of Internatzonal Conference on Automatic Fare Collection In Public Transport , 201-224
In anot.her test the communication error rate of the medium wave card has been confirmed to be below 5 x 10- 5 . which is requested for magnet.ically coated t.ickets in Japan, in conditions of t.he distance of 20cm and t.he moderate moving speed. Both cards proved the feasibility as the railway ticket. system and other similar applications.
Grimsey, C.( 1990) . London Transport : Perspective. Proceedings of International Conference on Automatic Fare CollectIOn In Public Transport. 261-280 Leas , J .W.(l990). North American Experiences with Automatic Fare Collection. Proceedings of International Conference on Automatic Fare Collection in Public Transport , 107-122
.').4 Large Scale Field Test
To gather more data about t.he feasibility of the new card system . a relatively large scale field test. was executed(summed up in Table 3). Eight stat ions selected for this test are all located in Tokyo \Ietropolitan Area. Four of them are in residential areas and others (including Tokyo Station) are in business areas. Cards used in this test are microwave cards(type 2), because it is necessary to compare t.he t.est data with those of medium wave card tests described above. Data acquired in this test about the system reliability and a lot of user opinions will be ut.ilized to develop a real full scale new card system. The results are now analyzing.
Miki, S ., Nagai . N. , Matsubara , H. , Yoshino , H. and Goto , K .{l991). Contact-free IC Cards for New Railway Ticket Systems. Proceedings of International Conference on Applications of Adlianced Technologies in TransportatIOn Engineering, 414-418 Richards, M.C.(1990) . Advanced Magnetic Ticketing Systems and Their Application in Singapore.Proceedings of International Conference on Automatic Fare Collection in Public Transport , 83-106
Table 3 I\letropolitan area test Stations Gates Users Period Cards
Sahlsten, H .(1994) . The Results of the Helsinki Bus Trial. Proceeding of 7th Annual International Smart Card Conference and Exhibition , 39-.5.5
8 18 about 400 Feb. t.o Mar. 1994 Microwave( type 2)
Slevin, R.(1990). The Milton Keynes Experience with Smartcards in UK. Proceedmgs of InternatIOnal Conference on A utomatic Fare Collection in Public Transport , 225-242
6. CONCLUSION Sutton , D.(1990). Single Smartcards for a Multiservice and Multioperator System: The case of La Plagne, France. Proceedings of International Conference on A utomatic Fare Collection in Public Transport, 427-442
This paper reports on the current technological status of our contact.less IC card system and shows that they are quite appropriate for practical use. A New t.icket syst.em is expected to come into use in the near future based on new cards.
Torode, R.(1994) . A Smart Card System for London's Buses . Proceeding of 7th Annual International Smart Card Conference and Exhibition, 31-38
7. REFERENCES
De Boer, W.(1994). Transport Cards in the Net.herlands. Proceeding of 7th Annual International Smart Card Conference and Exhibition, 74-i7 806