It's easy to read out the content of a magstripe with a tape recorder head. It wasn't long before some smart students started copying the cards. When I was in University (20 years ago) there were vending machines which worked with magstripe cards. Some have had partial success decoding it using audio tape recorder heads, laptop sound cards, and custom Linux software.īut still magnetic stripe is not very secure at all.
Off-the-shelf reader/writers for the standard cards are useless, and even hypothetically could work only with both physical and software modification.
It is a proprietary format developed by the contractor Cubic. Wikipedia wrote:The MetroCard does have a magnetic stripe, but both the track offsets and the encoding differ from standard Magstripe cards. I'm surprised that these metro cards still work with magnetic stripe, which is way less secure than RFID tags.Īpparently they made some modifications to make it harder to copy them: “Finding that balance remains important and difficult. “ the famous Vignelli versus Hertz debate: There are some sacrifices you make on geographical accuracy to make customers understand this large system,” Meyer says.
And finally, a few bridge locations don’t quite line up with the real-world geography the way Meyer would like. These more fluid curves will allow it to be more geographically accurate.Īside from that, Meyer hopes to add more data to the map, specifically around connections to the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North, which serves suburban New York and Connecticut commuters, so riders can always spot the best local transit option when they’re lost. Those refinements include offering more variety to the map’s 45- and 90-degree angles, at which lines currently turn.
Now, the team is working on a few core visual refinements to the map. I’d much rather people not have to use our map at all because it means the system is functioning as we want, and the only people using it are tourists.”īeyond routine service changes, in March, Work & Co added a vaccine finder to the map, which displays hundreds of spots around the city for getting vaccinated, along with scheduling information, and hours of operation. “Our map is only consulted when something is awry. Fundamentally, you’re looking at a small subset of riders,” she says. “This map is really for planned service changes, and those happen at night and on weekends. Meyer admits that’s a small fraction of the 2 million people who ride the MTA subways and buses each day, but she also suggests that this isn’t a map designed for daily use-when physical signs and Google Maps can help people navigate a straightforward commute. The new map has been heralded by the design community, and 100,000 riders are using it a month. You might argue that, as long as you get from point a to point b, why does it matter ? Well it does matter to some people!” she adds. That’s why the food is so good, the art is so good, and that’s why our maps have to be really good. “New Yorkers are a demanding bunch,” says Meyer. Look closely, and you can see the trains running on the lines in real time. The map also subtly reshapes itself as you zoom in. That means it’s an easy-to-read line map that also conveys where you are in the city at any given moment, so you’re less likely to be disoriented. It’s basically the Vignelli map, but scaled to fit accurately onto the real map of NYC like the Hertz.
In a pro bono project for the city, Work & Co combined the best of both worlds into a digital hybrid.
Most notably, individual train lines, such as the C, D, and E, are simplified into singular trunks. It’s more geographically accurate, but it removes crucial information that was in the Vignelli map. So in 1979, Michael Hertz Associates created the primary map the MTA still uses today. The locations of lines on the map don’t align with real life. It’s a design masterpiece, and yet, it has one big shortcoming: It’s something of a lie. In 1972, celebrated graphic designer Massimo Vignelli simplified NYC’s snaking subway system into a clean diagram that traded geographic literality for graphic clarity. The MTA Live Subway Map also tacitly solves one of the biggest debates in graphic design history (which we originally detailed in October 2020). The new map is built to portray real-time updates to service changes to help ensure that you never accidentally end up in the wrong place. The New York subway system is a complicated collection of tentacles, and its lines are under constant construction. It’s the winner of our 2021 Innovation by Design Awards for Cities. Last year, Meyer worked with the interactive agency Work & Co to release a landmark new digital subway map for the MTA.