Trouble surrounding OV chip card continues

An overview of recent developments in the field of the public transport chip card.
By Jeroen van der Ham 

The OV chip card is being introduced or made compulsory in more and more places. For example, in South Holland, from February 2011, the strippenkaart out of order, while in Friesland private is to keep the strippenkaart longer anyway.

The largest user group of the OV-chipkaart still consists of students. However, these often run into problems. In August, for instance, it emerged that 20,000 cards were already had broken down, according to the students because of poor quality. Also, on 1 December, transport company Connexxion's systems showed a failure, causing students to pay in error.

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (CBP) has also told transport companies reprimanded following an investigation requested by a number of students. It found that GVB, NS, RET and TLS all keep travel data for too long and store unnecessary details after checking in and out.

The issues surrounding the introduction of the public transport chip card have also made their way into politics. In October, a committee set headed by Gerd Leers. The committee is expected to issue a final report in spring 2011.

Finally, December also saw the first ever conviction been for forging OV chip cards. The 30-year-old offender was given 60 hours of community service for forging and distributing 20 cards.