Originally Posted by
kebosabi
The closest thing I see in use is Chicago's new Ventra Card where an all-in-one contactless debit MC has the ability to pay for CTA and PACE rides and purchase goods and services using the debit MC portion, the SmarTrip used in the DC Metro, or the BART ClipperCard used in San Francisco. That's pretty much it.
Boston's subway has had RFID cards since the mid-2000's, although it never managed to get to the point of using the balance for purchases outside the walled garden. There was a lot of talk of doing so back when it was first implemented, but unfortunately that was also when major budget deficits were announced and greatly publicized in the press, so side projects like that fell by the wayside. Incidentally, there was some zone-based pricing (the "D" line) before RFID, but even that line changed to flat-rate with RFID.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with the commuter rail system (zoned-based pricing) which is contracted-out--the last decade to a consortium of Veolia (a French company) and Bombardier, who just a few weeks ago was outbid by another French company (Keolis) which is actually owned by none other than SNCF... (which raised a few eyebrows in the French business press regarding fairness, given that they have gov't backing).