First wave of Opus cards set to expire
The first wave of Opus cards sold in April 2008 is going to begin to expire fairly soon, although the article is a bit vague on actual dates. As I understand it, the chip has a limited number of spaces that can be activated, and once these have been used up the card is finished. Item says the cards will be replaced free and more info will be available as of Thursday at http://www.carteopus.info.
Charles 12:54 on 2012/02/29 Permalink
I just hope they change the orange and blue design… see http://www.opuslift.com/
Kate 13:01 on 2012/02/29 Permalink
Oh I remember that site, Charles. I have a proposed design on there myself.
Bill_the_Bear 15:32 on 2012/02/29 Permalink
I’ve got one of those cards, and every time I renew it I see a message on the machine’s screen telling me that the card is good through (if I remember correctly) the end of August 2012.
Ralph 19:47 on 2012/02/29 Permalink
What i dont get is if they brought in these cards to reduce fraud, why do they still have even more AMT goons making people miss their busses to check the validity of such cards? (especially at metro stations located in districts considered to be less affluent).
Kate 22:14 on 2012/02/29 Permalink
Don’t they tend to hassle people using tickets, rather than Opus cards?
Mathieu 07:25 on 2012/03/01 Permalink
At metro stations, they just block the way and ask for everyone to show their proof of payment, be it on a single ticket or on OPUS. It doesn’t take more than 1 minute, really.
Tux 15:12 on 2012/03/02 Permalink
The reason given for needing to replace the cards doesn’t make sense – if it was simply a matter of the card being able to store X number of fares to a particular maximum an expiration DATE doesn’t make any sense. Your card could stop working before the date or well after depending on how often you put new fares on it.
Kate 15:35 on 2012/03/02 Permalink
It’s hard to judge – the deployment of data on the chip is not something the STM publicizes.