Patent ID: 8630954

Claim:
A method of enabling a consumer to purchase a transit product, comprising: receiving a selection of said transit product from a consumer; determining data identifying the selected transit product; operating an electronic data processor to generate an electronic message in a format transportable over a payment processing network, wherein the message includes one or more existing fields that are repurposed to include data identifying a transit provider, data identifying the transit product, and data identifying the consumer, wherein generating the electronic message further comprises inserting the data identifying the transit provider into a field of the message and in a format used to identify an issuer in a payment transaction authorization request message that is transportable over the payment processing network, inserting the data identifying the transit product into a field of the message and in a format used to identify a payment account in a payment transaction authorization request message that is transportable over the payment processing network, and inserting the data identifying the consumer into a field of the message and in a format that is transportable over the payment processing network; and submitting the generated message to a processing agent associated with the transit provider over the payment processing network, wherein the processing agent associates the selected transit product with the data identifying the consumer.