Patent ID: 8448852

Claim:
A method comprising: reading data at a point of service (POS) terminal in a transit system, wherein: a payment device is brought near a reader by a rider seeking access to a facility of the transit system; and the data: is read from the payment device issued by an issuer in a payment processing system; includes at least an identifier of an account associated with the issuer of the payment device; and includes such a history of payments for access to the facility that, when a transit system journey of the rider includes multiple legs and necessitates a transfer between said legs within the transit system, said history enables a determination of a cost of a sought access to a subsequent leg of the journey based on costs of access incurred at preceding legs of the journey; addressing a communication including the identifier of the account to a remote system from the POS terminal that is not in communication with the issuer; receiving, in response to the communication with the remote system, information as to whether the access is valid based upon the identifier of the account; and permitting, when the received information includes a validation of the access based upon the identifier of the account, the rider access to the facility of the transit system.