...

If you look deeper you'll see that the automated ticketing, at least on the smart phone, works very well.  The issue is the rules they have in place for those tickets; no amount of technology can succeed with rules like these.

$2,000,000 in fines.

What would be interesting is if the courts order the railway to refund all fines for the period in question.  That will hurt them a lot.

Den

The "cloud" posting time one bothered me.

One fundamental flaw is that there is no way that any billing system could tell the difference between a tightly timed mobile legal pre-boarding and illegal post-boarding purchase if there is the usual delay through the three CC processors involved.

I'm with the consumers on this one, but I don't know how you could handle this case if the rider only pays if he/she sees the conductor coming.