I think part of the problem is the reluctance of the industry to actually advertise such advances into mainstream.

In Los Angeles, the Metro recently started introducing of TAP cards which can be used for buses, rails, subways, and further ambitious plans to extend these to local municipal services. Unfortunately, no one knows about it because there are only five stores in the entire LA Basin which sells them, one of which is a city treasurer's office.

But quite frankly I think TAP cards are useless right now since the subway and rail system in LA is on the honor system Leave it up to city officials whose brilliant minds think that it's too costly to install fare gates for public transportation in the second largest city in the US.


In contrast, my Japanese colleague owned a JAL VISA card with SUICA chip embedded in it. It automatically charges from the VISA account when it gets low, and every tap on the train, bus, vending machines, convenience stores (basically anything that accepts SUICA) earns JAL miles. And they've had this technology in place for the past five years!