"Rīgas karte": e-ticket cannot be forged
The electronic payments system used in Riga public transport is maintained by company "Rīgas karte". The information about the possibility of forging the e-ticket, which appeared recently, is untrue, because the e-ticket cannot be forged. The information stored in an e-ticket can be copied to other data carriers, yet in this case it cannot be used for payments in public transport anyway because the e-ticket’s contents will not match with the card’s ID number, and also because only e-tickets of standard design and type are accepted in public transport.
Riga uses a type of e-tickets called Mifare Ultralight, which is widely spread and well known worldwide. The Riga public transport electronic payments system uses a cardboard card’s data carrier. Each card has its serial number which cannot be changed. Moreover, the data stored in the card are protected by the system’s special digital signature which is identified by the serial number. The OTP (one-time programming) technology ensured extra data protection. So far there have been no reports of hacking into Mifare Ultralight cards (change of the serial number, forgery of digital signature, hacking of OTP zones).
According to standard regulations, during ticket inspection a passenger has to give the card in the inspector’s hands, i.e. he/she has to take it out of his purse, pocket, back etc. This prevents the possibility of using any devices (phone, plastic card etc.) containing a copy of the original ticket. Even more, ticket forgery is a criminal offence.
It has been claimed that an e-ticket can be reloaded an endless number of times, yet actually not an e-ticket, but another card is „reloaded”, which a ticket inspector would certainly notice. "Rīgas karte" believes that all these activities have no sense, it will be equivalent to fare dodging anyway. If a ticket inspector is given an e-ticket hiding another card, as is shown in the video, this act is deemed to be a fraud and may be reported to police.
For more information about the services provided by "Rīgas satiksme", public transport routes and schedules, types of tickets and other news, please visit our webpage at www.rigassatiksme.lv or social networks "twitter", "facebook", "draugiem.lv".
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