Smart card systems
Smart cards have great potential to make life easier for people with disabilities. There are over a thousand million smart cards in use in Europe today. A smart card is the size of a credit card, and incorporates an electronic chip.
The amount of information this chip can carry and the way smart cards can be used has been evolving over many years. Many of us are familiar with these cards. We use them as prepaid cards to pass transport barriers (Oyster cards), as credit and debit cards, as security access cards to buildings and for such things as medical or identity records.
Smart cards can be:
- Memory only, for applications such as pre-payment telephone cards.
- Memory plus a microprocessor, for applications requiring more security such as credit and debit cards.
- Proximity, where the card has to be held within 10 cm of the reader – mainly used for public transport applications.
- Vicinity, where the card is between 10 cm and 2 metres of the reader.
- Distant contactless, where the card is more than 2 metres from the reading device – for instance, in road charging applications.
Vicinity cards are not yet in general use but may be used in the foreseeable future for ticketing. The receiving aerial would be around the doorway of the bus, and the maximum fare for the route could be taken from the card on entering the bus and the unused part refunded on leaving the bus. This could be very helpful for a person with a disability who was restricted in their ability to use a city’s ticket machines.
For visitors, smart cards that allow pre-payment will help speed up the entry and exit to public transport and also to venues such as sports stadiums and concerts. Where large numbers of people need to be managed, smart cards improve speed of processing payments and the ability to allocate revenues and subsidies between various operators.
Because smart cards can carry specific information, they can be used to deliver this information or instructions to a terminal, an access barrier, a machine, an environment control system, and many other devices. Because it is possible for more than one application to be held on a smart card it is not necessary for a person to have a large number of different cards.
A smart card can hold information on how a person prefers to use a terminal or interface. For example, a person with low vision at a ticket machine may prefer a specific size and colour of text on the screen. People with other disabilities may need more time, speech or audio output, more simplified choices or a different language. As soon as the person is finished the machine can revert to a default setting.
Smart cards and their use continues to evolve. The amount of information they carry will increase, the range at which they can be used will improve and security will continue to get better.
The EN 1332 series of standards specify:
- Icons for use with card-operated systems.
- A notch in the card to help a blind user insert it into a machine in the correct orientation.
- The layout of keypads.
- Coding of user requirements (such as large characters or more time).
- Embossed symbols to help select the correct card for a particular application.
Go to Tiresias Cards and Smart Media Guidelines