> The big argument against this (for public transit agencies) is likely transaction fees: it's going to be more expensive for the agency to process a bunch of t

> The big argument against this (for public transit agencies) is likely transaction fees: it's going to be more expensive for the agency to process a bunch of tiny transactions for each trip than it will be to process relatively few larger transactions when a stored-value card is refilled. Yeah, though I think they could negotiate better fees given the volume (not that I think public transit authorities tend to be good at much at all without considerable public interest). I guess time will tell. Here in Canada, I think average merchant fees for the credit part are less than 1% overall, not sure if that would end up being such a big issue; especially when compared with the cost of administering a whole new system (anti-money-laundering, fraud detection, security, development, integration, support etc. etc).