Contactless transit card (Octopus)
Tarjeta de transporte sin contacto (Octopus)
- Date
- 1 de septiembre de 1997 · confidence medium
- Place
- Hong Kong, China
- Credited to
- Mass Transit Railway Corporation and Hong Kong transport operators
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A radio-frequency chip card that pays by tapping on the reader, introduced in Hong Kong to unify payment on metro, bus and tram. It was one of the first contactless transit cards in the world.
Seoul introduced a contactless bus card in 1996; Octopus is cited as the first to cover several modes with mass use. Wikipedia ranks it as the world's second contactless smart-card system after Korea's Upass.
What it led to
- contactless payments in shops and vending machines
- the Suica, Oyster and T-money cards