SF Chronicle: BART planning tickets that resist magnets

[marmar]

BART planning tickets that resist magnets
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 12, 2008


BART management hopes to limit the havoc that those dastardly magnets can cause with fare cards.

The plan is to upgrade the magnetic stripes on the tickets, which should make it harder to erase the electronic record of a fare card's value. And that should mean fewer inconvenienced riders, officials said.

On Thursday, the BART board will consider a $3.7 million contract to purchase 180 million plastic tickets. Once the fare gates and ticket machines are reprogrammed, the new tickets would use a different kind of magnetic stripe and be less prone to damage by an iPod, cell phone, purse clasp or other device that contains a magnet. The retrofit isn't expected to be completed until November.

The magnetic stripes affixed to the front of the prepaid BART tickets keep track of how much money is left on each card and serve as a sort of key to let people enter and exit the electronic fare gates.

BART now receives about 250 "de-mag" complaints each day from passengers who are blocked from going through the fare gates because their tickets are damaged, agency spokesman Linton Johnson said.

And while the new tickets wouldn't be perfect, fewer problems are expected, Johnson said.

Not only would that mean less aggravation for riders, but also for station agents, who are the front-line BART workers dealing with the trouble tickets. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/12/BA5KV0ET9.DTL&hw=BART&sn=001&sc=1000