Pay As You Go

Until recently, the desire for user privacy in intelligent transportation systems seemed to be at odds with the cost constraints of payment tokens. There is need for low-cost payment devices that can be produced in massive quantities while sophisticated cryptographic techniques seem to be too computationally intensive to be used in such devices. Our Pay-as-you-Go approach will demonstrate that it is possible to obtain privacy on very low-cost tokens, while retaining the benefits of useful data collection. We explore privacy-preserving payment protocols suitable for use in public transportation and show ways to efficiently implement those protocols on potential payment devices. Pay-as-you-Go is a multi-disciplinary research project, funded by NSF, that includes a diverse team of computer scientists, electrical and computer engineers and transportation engineers from Brown University and the University of Massachusetts.