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Plastic is not the only smart card solution.
Newbury Data, manufacturer of the ND4020 UK rail
ticket printer, has recently launched the
ND4030, the company’s first entry into
contactless smart ticket printing market.
Newbury Data believe they are ideally placed to
support system integrators develop low cost
paper based contactless smart ticket printing
applications to support any current or future
requirements.
The ND4030 supports various integrated cards
(IC’s) including Philip MiFARE Ultralight and
1K. The
ND4030 is targeting mass transit and event
management, offering the opportunity to have one
ticket that combines transport and access to an
event, such as travel and entry by Rail or Bus
to Football matches or the Olympics etc
Newbury Data has developed a paper smart card
ticketing solution, which enables the ticket to
be personalised with user details, including the
journey details, to be printed on to the ticket.
Currently, the general public’s exposure to
smart card technology has been in the form of
plastic cards, such as the Oyster Card, which
has rapidly become popular with London’s
residents.
However, while the plastic solutions are
reasonably expensive to produce and requires
deposit for the card, the ND4030 is able to
bring all the benefits of a contactless system
using plastic smart card, but in the form of a
paper ticket. And using paper results in a much
lower unit cost.
Printed tickets benefit the passengers and
customers because the journey details are on the
ticket, this is essential when the journey
travels through part of a transport network that
is not supported by an integrated transport
system, or to simply advise the passenger or
guard of the travel details when a reader is not
present to validate the ticket.
We believe the “single” ticket paper printing
and encoding technology is unique to us and in
the summer we will be releasing a mobile
version. The printer at present is a desktop
device for use at POS Tills and in self service
kiosks.
Therefore, as the market
for contactless smart card technology gathers
pace, paper based systems will offer
significantly lower costs to authorities and
perceived downsides, such as lower ‘durability’,
will prove to be unfounded. We expect the smart
transport authorities to make increasing use of
the paper solutions for their smart card
ticketing requirements. |
