In Irkutsk, the non-cash payment for travel in urban transport was launched / Geektimes

In the public transport of the city of Irkutsk, a non-cash payment for travel has been launched. In this article, we will try to understand how this system works, and whether it has prospects for the future.

On April 5, 16 vehicles were equipped with devices for non-cash payment of travel: 12 buses 37 and 67 of the route, 2 second trams, and two trolley buses 1 and 7k. This is a joint project of Sberbank and MasterCard payment system. On vehicles, with this method of payment, you can see a special sticker:

The design of the sticker is not the most suitable, my friends associate it with free WIFI on the bus.

You can see the detailed instructions on how to pay the fare on the bus.

Photo of the Instruction

We need to do the following:

1. Click on the green button.
2. Attach the device to contactless payment to the screen, or insert the card with the chip into the card reader.
3. To take the check.

From the following it is clear that:

• You can pay only by MasterCard
• Payment is made by any contactless accessory, or by a bank card with a chip.
• The payment process is simple, and it is completely produced by the passenger, not by the driver. This method of payment should unload the queue.

At the end of the poster there is a note: in case there was an error “Your card is in the stop list”, go here: link (for some reason, QR code leads to the page, for the city of Voronezh).

From all information it is clear that Payments occur in Offline mode, i.e. The terminal accumulates payments, and at a certain moment it is connected to the network, and the data is sent to the bank. Thanks to this method of payment, payments are made quickly (the terminal is connected to the bank’s servers). The speed of payment is increased, because there is no need to enter a pin code (with contactless payment).

Why did I decide that payments are made offline? It’s simple. In the poster and on the site it is mentioned about the stop-list. The stop-list includes cards with negative balance, as well as blocked cards. The terminal downloads a stop list during the transfer of payments to the bank. Therefore, be careful! During the payment, the terminal does not have the ability to check your balance. Do not pick up debts. Different banks apply different sanctions in this case.

From theory to practice. We sit in the 67 bus, go to the desired stop, pass the card to the driver, the driver in confusion. He does not know what to do with the card. He said that he does not have any equipment (why then so many colored posters on the bus that you can pay with a card?) If you look closely, you can notice the terminal lying in the driver’s cab.

Terminal

I do not know what to say about this. I had to pay for cash in cash. Maybe the driver was not instructed, maybe the system is not working yet (Although the media claim that everything works, there were several reports of how they paid the card.) In the evening I noticed another 67 bus, I did not manage it. But in the window I saw how the terminal was affably installed near the window for payment for the fare. Maybe it was just a concrete bus. I will ride on different buses, search with a working terminal to check which mode the operations are in (Online or Offline). In the first case, the time of printing the check and the arrival of the notification will coincide, otherwise there is not. I wanted to pay for the contactless MasterCard Yandex.Money card.

P.S. Just two years ago, in all municipal transport, vehicles were installed to pay for travel, and checking the balance with internal cards. But so everything failed with an unsuccessful run. Now all the devices hang with extinct lights. In March of this year, it seems like they started issuing these electronic cards again to beneficiaries, but so far I have not seen terminals on buses, or that somebody paid them.

Let’s hope , That this system will not die, as the previous one, but will develop. Sberbank most likely will not abandon this case. If the system is in demand, it will be launched in all municipal transport.