My very first smart card

I got my very first smart card today, with a real chip in it and everything! The card is a parking meter card that stores $50 of value in it. As you can see from the back side photo I took, the card has a chip you can see. I can use it, as instructed, to increment the parking meter by 25 cents a time. This is incredibly important in a city where the parking meters use 6-12 quarters an hour, depending on the neighborhood.

The funny thing is that the city of San Francisco seems fairly tentative about the whole project, even though it installed 23,000 new parking meters -- ones that can read these cards -- in 2003. The cards are issued under a pilot program; I don't know when the pilot started or what the reason for going slow is. But they're only are sold at a grand total of 31 places  in San Francisco, a mixture of city agencies, liquor and hardware stores and other retail locations. You can only pay cash. It almost feels like the city has decided to keep the existence of the cards a virtual secret for  three years.

I only heard about them by happenstance, when my lunch date on Friday mentioned that he had managed to buy one and was using it to keep his meter fed while we were eating. Anyway, I'm feeling pretty special -- I not only have a real smart card but I must be one of the first in the whole city to have found out how to get one! (And now I don't have to load up on quarters.)

Comments

[Mike Ryan]

Stewart, Bravo! Thanks for the heads up on the parking smart card. Like yourself it seems I need to raid my son's piggy bank everytime I need to have a meeting that onkly has meter parking. I'll plan to get one this week! Now, since San Francisco is planning to be a wireless city, won't it be nice that the parking meters were smart and would be connected with my "FastPass" account and therefore even eliminate the use of a card someday...I know perhaps in the year 2525 when we have no need for cars or parking will this innovation come be implemented.

Enjoy your writing musing from smart cards, Mini Coopers and New Zealand fishing, welcome back to the writing world.

Take care,

Mike