WHEN Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty on 1 July this year it will
boast an ultramodern infrastructure. In particular, the trains, buses and
ferries of the former British colony will mount the world鈥檚 most sophisticated
system for fare collection.
The system鈥檚 most visible component is the smart cards that millions of Hong
Kong commuters will carry. Responsible for the design and much of the
manufacture of this system is AES Prodata, a small company based in Perth.
The automated fare collection system was commissioned in 1994 by Creative
Star, a consortium consisting of five companies鈥攖he government-run Mass
Transit Railway Corporation and Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation, which
operate underground as well as regular train services, and the privately-owned
Kowloon Motor Bus, Citybus, and Hong Kong and Yaumati Ferry.
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Oddly enough, Hong Kong鈥檚 most famous public transporter鈥攖he
cross-harbour Star Ferry service鈥攊s one of the few not participating in
the scheme. However, according to a consortium spokesperson, the venerable ferry
company is still reviewing the matter and may decide to join later.
Why Creative Star should have chosen AES Prodata to implement its automated
fare system is far from being intuitively obvious. The company is a subsidiary
of the Australian company ERG, whose main business is developing
telecommunications equipment such as paging transmitters. And while Western
Australia likes to bill itself as 鈥淎sia鈥檚 Southern Tiger鈥�, Perth is not exactly
world-renowned for the excellence of its mass transit systems.
But AES Prodata has two advantages over bigger, more conveniently located
rivals. One is a rare expertise in the highly specialised field of fare
collection technology. The other is a group of engineers who have been working
with smart cards for over ten years. That is why huge firms like Sony鈥攚hich
is supplying the cards for the Hong Kong project鈥攈ave been eager to come
and work with the Australians.
The parent firm, ERG, calls itself one of Australia鈥檚 fastest-growing
industrial companies. In 1996, ERG invested an extraordinary A$31.6
million in research and development, an amount equivalent to 19 per cent of its
revenue from sales. Much of this investment went into the development of
automated fare collection systems.
The marketplace in which AES Prodata operates is global. The company鈥檚
involvement with Hong Kong dates back to the late 鈥�80s, when it won its first
contract to install metal and perspex boxes for collecting coins on city buses.
In addition to installations across Europe, AES Prodata has also sold fare
collection systems to bus operators in Malaysia and Taiwan.
鈥淔or a small technology company based in Perth, WA, they鈥檝e done remarkably
well to get where they are today,鈥� says Simon Hodges, an analyst at stockbroker
Hartley Poynton who has recently issued a report on ERG.
Conventional smart cards improve on the familiar magnetic-stripe cards that
we all carry in our wallets and purses in that they contain a silicon chip. In
addition to storing the owner鈥檚 personal identification number, this can also be
loaded with enough credit to pay for multiple journeys. No more fumbling in your
pocket for the correct change.
But to extract the fare from smart cards, they must first be inserted into a
card reader. This can cause problems. It takes time to insert the card and
queues can build up at the turnstile. The card can bend while being used and
this reduces its useful lifetime. Also such reader systems are mechanically
complex and have a habit of breaking down.
The solution to the problem is a 鈥渃ontactless鈥� smart card, the technology
that AES Prodata is using in Hong Kong. Communication between card and reader
takes place at radio frequencies (typically 125 kilohertz). The cards do not
need batteries鈥攖hey contain a coil which is inductively powered by a
magnetic field generated by the card reader (a small box about the size of a
laptop computer). For the fare to be collected, all the commuter has to do is
wave his or her card within 10 centimetres of the reader. Processing is
completed in less than one third of a second.
There are benefits in using smart cards for the operator, too. Downloading
fare data at the depot makes it easy to track passenger boarding patterns. To
encourage off-peak travel, fares can be flexibly set for different times of the
day.
Japanese commuters are particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of having
contactless cards. But they will have to wait a bit longer. Having recently made
an enormous investment in automated mechanical readers to replace human ticket
clippers, Japanese railway companies are not in a hurry to update their
systems.
Though small-scale trials of contactless smart cards are underway in cities
all over the world, Hong Kong is the first to implement a large-scale system. The
numbers involved are enormous: three and a half million cards, five million
transactions per day, over A$10 billion in fares collected per year.
Another difference between Hong Kong鈥檚 system and other systems is that it is
not confined to a single mode of transport. This is a major benefit for commuters,
many of whom live in housing developments located on one of the territory鈥檚
outlying islands.
Operating on the leading edge of technology does have its drawbacks. In 1995,
delays over the implementation of an automated ticketing and fare collection
system in Melbourne led to a highly public disagreement between ERG and the
Victorian government.
The Hong Kong system has also been delayed by problems. In late
1996, the company was forced to replace the supplier of some back-end software.
In such a large system, which brings together disparate elements from five
different partners, delays are probably inevitable. However, the company remains
confident that final installation will be complete in June 1997, just in time to
impress the former colony鈥檚 new owners.