All purpose passcard. Now this is what we are talking about…well we haven’t actually talked about it but the idea does resonate with us for sure. Consolidating services so that we have less admin to worry about. Carry less – do more or do more with less…you get what we are saying. Simplification; its ultimately what we are all after. We want to declutter and spend our valuable time on only those things that matter. It is for this reason that our data dogs are so driven to automate mundane tasks and its why we love this idea of having a single card that caters for all your travel; train/bus/subway/plane and even allows you to take care of all your travel related spends like parking and snacks.
The UK’s proposed MultiPass is based very much on its namesake in the futuristic movie “The 5th Element”. “The plan revolves around a passcard with an e-ink barcode display that would replace a plethora of current travel fare cards. ” says Robert Sorokanich of GIZMODO. Another advantage of consolidating services is that things become more trackable – the more data that is collated in a single system the more the “story” of that data can be followed. The more data that you can follow the more valuable information you can extract. That information can then be grouped into a knowledge base that can be used to improve our lives.
A pilot test will be conducted in London in 2014 – does this mean that the future depicted in “The 5th Element” is almost upon us!! It is amazing how accurately Sci-Fi creates blueprints for industry research and development and also how quickly that development happens. Even more amazing is that the 60 year old barcode still forms an integral part of the futuristic solution!
