Octopus card

The Octopus card is a reusable contactless stored value smart card for making electronic payments in Hong Kong. Started in September 1997 to collect fares for the MTR, the Octopus card system is the second contactless smart card system in the world, after the Korean Upass, and has been widely used for all public transport in Hong Kong.^[1] It led to the development of Oyster card in London.

Octopus reader at an MTR ticket gate

Octopus card reader at a McDonald's restaurant in Central

Term

Octopus card
Traditional Chinese	八達通
Simplified Chinese	八达通
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Bā Dá Tōng Wade–Giles Pa1 Ta2 T'ung1 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization baat daaht tùng Jyutping baat3 daat6 tung1

Baat Daaht Tùng (Cantonese Pronunciation) translates as "eight-arrived pass" (in Chinese it was accepted as "go-everywhere pass"), where Baat Daaht may translate as "reaching everywhere". It was selected by the head of the MTR, the parent company of Octopus Cards Limited, in a naming competition held in 1996.^[2]

Related pages

• MTR

References

1. "Hong Kong Smart Card System". The World Bank Group. Archived from the original on 4 March 2007. Retrieved 13 February 2007.
2. "八達通控股有限公司里程碑 (lit. Milestones of Octopus Holdings Limited)" (in Chinese). Octopus Holdings Limited. Archived from the original on 9 February 2006. Retrieved 28 February 2007.

Other websites

• Official home page
• Richard MacManus (2 September 2009). "Hong Kong's Octopus Card: Utility Outweighs Privacy Concerns". ReadWriteWeb. Archived from the original on 5 September 2009. Retrieved 5 September 2009.