How does NFC card and reader transfer data?

Question

Just out of curiosity.

In our town we use NFC cards for the public transportation, so when you use the train you have to touch on and then touch off when getting off.

I've recently found out that it is possible for us to view our entire travel history and time online using the transportation website. I know the card reader is connected to the GPS and writes the GPS data/location to the card when it is touched, but how does that date travel online from the reader?

How do you know writes the GPS data/location to the card? Are you certain that the card data is being updated? — Neil Smithline, May 14 '16 at 16:39
Why would it write data to the card? Wouldn't it simply log the location on the central database? — schroeder, May 14 '16 at 23:45

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered May 14 '16 at 14:38

It's highly probable that a NFC reader is storing it's data on a central server via REST or XML-RPC interface, i.e. a simple web service. It "pings back" a GPS coordinates and touch-in/out events, so the rest of data processing is done on a central server

How does NFC card and reader transfer data?

1 Answers1