Talk:SmarTrip

Source?

What is the source for the information added in the revision for 10:32, 11 February 2006 by 211.30.67.186? That's the whole bit about ERG (which is undefined in the text) and Northrop Grumman in regards to Smartrip.

I smell a possible copyvio on that one, since it reads like a brochure and is not smoothly integrated into the article. I hope I'm wrong on the copyvio point, but that was my gut feeling. SchuminWeb (Talk) 11:23, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Well becides it's actucual relevance to the article as a whole, it is a copy-vio from www.erggroup.com/annualreport/2003/content/roo_transitsystems.pdf , so i went ahead and removed it. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 08:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

New Smartrip-only faregates

I presume by now at least someone has seen the new Smartrip-wrapped faregates. I saw them this morning on the way to work in both Bethesda and Pentagon City. I remember reading something about a Smartrip pilot, but does anyone happen to have a link to this so we can add it to the article? Also, if anyone has a camera on them, can they snap a picture-mine's in the shop.

As for subjective comments-a surprising number of people seemed confused by the things-despite their BRIGHT blue color and apparent lack of a farecard slot. When there are fewer of them, like in Pentagon City, people seem to avoid them, while in Bethesda, where there were 5 or 6 of them (2-3 each way), people aimlessly tried to put their cards in nonexistant slots. I think they're certainly worth mentioning as well as including a picture-the color is a welcome departure from Metro's normally minimalist scheme. -Rmeskill 14:02, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

No photo, no problem. I'm going to be up that way next week, and I'll snap off a few shots. Are there any other stations containing this feature besides Pentagon City and Bethesda? SchuminWeb (Talk) 01:50, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

They're also at Vienna, which is what I consider my "home" station (i.e. where I park when I'm up that way). I fired off a few shots, and I'll be posting one momentarily. SchuminWeb (Talk) 06:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Other Local Transit Systems

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think I read somewhere that plans were afoot to allow SmartTrip to be used on the non-WMATA transit systems, like those run by Montgomery and Fairfax counties. Does anyone have any sources on this? --Cjs56 17:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that you are correct, that there are plans to implement SmarTrip on the various regional bus operations. A friend of mine said that DASH will eventually get it, but was unsure of when. I'll do a little digging and see what I can find... SchuminWeb (Talk) 03:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Misleading Verbiage

"Other regional bus systems in neighboring Virginia and Maryland have adopted SmarTrip readers due to its success on WMATA Metrobuses."

This is misleading because it implies that the local systems didn't have plans to implement SmarTrip and just saw WMATA making lots of money with them; this is not the case. SmarTrip was to be an integrated network from day one, with Metro leading the project. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.239.80.167 (talk • contribs) 21:22, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Adoption by other local systems

SmarTrip was adopted by local bus systems in the following order:

DASH (Alexandria) - February 2007

• first system outside of WMATA (Circulator is managed by WMATA) to fully implement SmarTrip

Ride On (Montgomery) - April 2007 Fairfax Connector - May 2007 PRTC (Prince William) - June 2007 CUE, ART - Summer 2007 Last I was told, PG TheBus will not be participating; this might have changed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.239.80.167 (talk • contribs) 21:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That's nice to hear, but what we need are reliable, documented sources for this kind of information. The implementation information should be included in the cited sources. If it isn't, we need to get better sources. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 10:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I was about to say, it shouldn't be that hard to find cited sources for such things, since that would be something that would get published somewhere, even if just in a passing reference. SchuminWeb (Talk) 02:02, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

You would think that. Unfortunately, I've found that these local public-transporation systems sometimes don't bother to announce that they have done something, like add SmarTrip. Some of their press releases seem more calculated to reduce phone calls from anxious passengers (e.g., "yes, it's coming Real Soon Now") than to apprise them of completed events. Nor have I noticed that Washington-area news agencies find SmarTrip status a compelling news item, at least when compared to major traffic accidents and the latest DC scandal. I guess we'll have to dig a little deeper. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:05, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, PRTC says they're still waiting for changes to SmarTrip before they will accept it, specifically, the ability to load passes onto SmarTrip. The latest OmniRide newsletter said this would be done "by summer 2008", but I'm hoping it'll be sooner than that (tokens are a pain). -lee 20:35, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Finally, a firm date for PRTC. The January 2008 OmniNews (which is on the buses but, for some reason, isn't available on the Web yet) says that SmarTrip will work on OmniRide and OmniLink as of March 3. They say more information will be available in February. -lee (talk) 15:23, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:09, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

14443 compliance

According to an earlier version of the ISO/IEC 14443 article:

SmarTrip cards comply with ISO/IEC 14443 Type B

I'm removing that text from the 14443 article, because I believe that much detail is out of scope, but perhaps belongs in the SmarTrip article. (I've merely kept the "SmarTrip cards" in a list in the 14443 article.) I've moved the text - and in particular the citation - here, so that the information is not lost. Perhaps someone could add it to an appropriate (new?) section of the SmarTrip article. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

SmarTrip looks to be not compliant with ISO/IEC 14443, based on Cubic's proprietary Go Card technology, and since DC is upgrading the current readers to be 14443A/B compliant. See http://music.columbia.edu/pipermail/dorkbotdc-blabber/2008-July/000613.html Drf5n (talk) 02:47, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

SmarTrip/ability to calculate passes

As written in the article:

"WMATA has announced that SmarTrip should have the ability to calculate discounted rail and bus passes by September 2009."

Does anyone know if this happened?--71.163.21.238 (talk) 14:54, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Reference kind of hanging out unused

This was added to the References section in the article, but it's not being used to cite anything:

• "SmarTrip Update" (PDF). Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Finance and Administration Committee. June 10, 2010.

It's fully formed, so it's just a matter of copy-pasting it in between some ref tags once we need to cite it somewhere, but it can live here in the meantime. SchuminWeb (Talk) 05:15, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:SmarTrip/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Pyrotec (talk) 10:16, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I will review. Pyrotec (talk) 10:16, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to review the article. I will get started on researching your concerns, but will give you a chance to finish your review. I would like to get this wrapped up as quickly as possible. Again, thanks, Racepacket (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Initial comments

This looks to be quite a reasonable article and should make GA-status this time round.

Working my way through the article, section by section, but leaving the WP:Lead until last, my view are comments are given below. If I don't comment here on a particular section, that means that I've not found any "problems", or I found a minor problem and fixed it as I worked down the article.

• Overview -

• Clicking on reference 5 (Weir, Kytja (July 7, 2011)) goes to "today's" edition of the Washington Examiner (and a sorry not found message) and not the reference cited. Possibly, because July 7, 2011 has not arrived - although that is probably a typo.-- Replaced
• Clinking on reference 6 (Giesecke & Devrient (2008)) gives a not found message. - replaced
• It's not clear to me what the statement "Metro pays $3.40 for each card." means (and the citation is broken so I can't check it). The obvious questions are: pays who?; and why do they pay? -- Removed

• The contractor bills Metro $3.40 for each card, and Metro distributes the cards to users at a price that has changed over time. Racepacket (talk) 21:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• I'm not familiar with the SmartBenefits program and there does not appear to be a wikipedia article on this topic (I could not find one) so much of the second half of the fourth paragraph is meaningless to me. Potential GA's should not be written only for Washington, USA, readers.

• Your criticism is valid and I will explain the reference. Racepacket (talk) 21:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• Criticism -

• It's not clear how up to date and relevant these statements are, its currently almost half way through 2011 (five months), but much of this section does not appear to have been updated since 2008/2009; for example:

• The first paragraph gives a general criticism about lack of availability of these cards. The first two sentences are unreferenced, or might be the same reference as the third section; which is marked as a dead link, so these three sentences are not WP:Verifiable at present. So its not clear whether they predate 2008 or are 2008 statements; and 2008 is several years ago, so things might have improved?
• The second paragraph may also be out of date: there is a statement that "A number of SmarTrip features that were supposed to be introduced in 2005 by SmarTrip's creator, Cubic Transportation Systems, have yet to be implemented", but that is supported by a reference dating back to February 2008 (some three years ago). The remainder of the paragraph makes statements about features to be available by September 2009 but not yet implemented and others to be made available by December 2009, but the cited reference dates to November 2009.

• The features have not be implemented. I could refer to the smarTrip website, but the absence of the feature on the website does not affirmatively show that they are not implemented. Metro has issued an RFP for a replacement system, so further development of this system is under a cloud. What do you suggest? Racepacket (talk) 21:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Please see my changes. Racepacket (talk) 03:07, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

• We edit conflicted, so I'm add my comments, and then reassess. Pyrotec (talk) 21:35, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• In contrast, the third paragraph states "as of October 2010), so that is reasonably current. However, it does make statements about a feature that was due to be implemented by September 2009, but was delayed, according to a November 2009 press release, to Fall 2010. Since that was some six months ago, I would have expected an up date.

In response to your question, above, the final sentence in the final paragraph of Overview is verified by ref 8 ("Metro seeking next generation fare payment system". WMATA. Retrieved April 21, 2011.). That could be used to "verify" a new final summary paragraph in Criticism expanding on your comment above, i.e. "The features have not be implemented" and " Metro has issued an RFP for a replacement system, so further development of this system is under a cloud.". That should effectively counter any claim on my part that the information has not been updated. Pyrotec (talk) 21:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• The WP:Lead is quite "thin". Its intended to both introduce the article and provide a summary of the main points. I'm happy that it provides an introduction, but there not much summary. For example, it states "as of 2004", but the body of the article states that the system was introduced (in part) in 1999. It mentions use on all Metrorail stations and on all Metrobuses, but there is nothing about the student and "Senior" variants, nor SmartBenefits program; nothing about the complaints over limited availability and the need to accept credit card payments at some metrostations. Pyrotec (talk) 21:35, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• I am expanding the lead. What do you think? Racepacket (talk) 03:07, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

• Much better, thanks. Pyrotec (talk) 11:13, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

...I'm stopping my review at this point, its "bedtime" here. I'll review in the morning and make a decision on whether to place an "On Hold" on the review. Pyrotec (talk) 21:50, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the edit conflict. I am sure that we can resolve whatever problems you identify with a brief one or two day hold at the most. 02:07, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Overall summary

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

---

As all the "problems" identified above have been resolved, I regard this article as being compliant with WP:WIAGA

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   Well illustrated.

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   Well illustrated.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

I'm awarding this article GA-status. Congratulations on producing an informative article. Pyrotec (talk) 11:19, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

External links modified

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Parking theft citation

I saw the note about a poor citation in the section about parking fee theft and Penn Parking. Any number of articles from the Washington Post can be used for citation here, including https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/02/26/millions-stolen-at-metro-lots/07eda69f-d0a1-480c-bf7f-d87558a66641/ cipherswarm (talk) 23:01, 10 January 2016 (UTC)