Ticketing systems for mass transit and other transportation networks have long been known in the art. Ticketing systems for PRT are less well established.
There are many ways that a rider can pay to ride in a transit network. In years past, a rider paid with cash and bought a ticket or a token from a person staffing a booth. More recently, riders have bought tickets from machines using cash. Today, a rider can buy a fare using cash, debit cards, credit cards, electronic accounts, and so forth. In addition, the fare can be purchased in many different ways such as by using a machine at a station or other location, on the telephone, on the Internet, and so forth.
Most modern ticketing systems have little human involvement. In many cases, the only human involvement in the transaction is by the fare purchaser.
The prior art for ticketing systems suffers from certain shortcomings or limitations. The purpose of the present invention is to overcome these and other shortcomings or limitations in the prior art.