Contactless smart card technologies became mature recently and have high application potential on public transportation integrated ticketing systems. There are many problems inherent in the existing bus magnetic system in Taipei Metropolitan Area. Three major drawbacks are transaction time is too long to tolerate, maintenance cost is too expensive, and it does not integrate bus and metro ticketing systems together. The basic contactless smart card specifications have been proposed as a draft base for regional and national integrated transportation ticketing system in Taiwan. Demonstration testing has been implemented in a staff based and a small scale customer field trial from this April to July. According to customer research most of the users viewed the contactless smart card favorably because they would be able to use the card on multiple transportation modes and to shorten transaction time on buses.
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