Soon you may no longer need a ticket to travel on the London Underground.
The company behind London’s Oyster card technology, Cubic Transportation Systems, is developing a new way to identify its passengers and spot those who are avoiding fares.
Instead of scanning an Oyster card, in future London Underground passengers could use the veins in their hands or even their face to get to a train, Wired reported. This technology aims to reduce waiting times as the number of passengers on the London Underground continues to increase.
“How can we cope with the growth in capacity and help ease the flow of passengers through stations? said Dave Roat, chief strategy officer at Cubic Transportation Systems.
The company is working on a prototype “validator” that will accept Oyster and contactless cards, but also a variety of other options. It will have an infrared scanner that can read the unique vein print of your hand if you place it on the scanner, and facial recognition. Each customer will have linked their own scans to their Oyster card account.
The vein scanner would likely be similar technology to that used by Sthaler, in the UK’s first supermarket that allows customers to pay with their hands.
The futuristic validation machine will also have a Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE) detector that will pick up signals sent from your phone, without you having to scan it.
Once a customer has been validated, they then go through a hallway instead of a door. A light will turn green if they have paid and red if they have not.
The doorless system could arrive in London within a year, but it will first arrive at stations without doors to remind people to enter or exit. The company says it won’t be able to stop people from evading tariffs, but it will be a useful way to see where the most tariff evasion is happening.
This is not the first time that Transport for London has considered using facial recognition technology. in 2003 Software analysis of CCTV footage has been tested at Liverpool Street station, to search for unattended bags. At the time, however, the software proved to be slower than security check wizards in spotting bags.
14 years later, it’s clear that technology has advanced enough for facial recognition to become a viable option for companies like TfL. Apple’s new iPhone X uses facial recognition in its Face ID for users to unlock the phone, instead of Touch ID.
However, Roat said facial recognition was not yet accurate enough to be used for passenger identification purposes. He also confirmed that these options will never replace the classic ticket or Oyster card, they will just be there for those who choose to share their biometric information.
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