A Plan to Turn Your Unused Subway Money Into Charity

Common Pence

It happens on public transit systems everywhere. Tourists buy a pass and put a bunch of money on it so they don’t have to refill every time they want to go somewhere. And in all likelihood, they leave town without using up all of what they paid for. The money goes to waste, funneled directly into the coffers of the agency running the system.

Or maybe not. A British designer has come up with a device that will let you donate to charity whatever cash is left on your card. Zander Whitehurst made Common Pence to work with the Oyster Card, RFID-enabled currency of the London public transportation system. After you take your final trip, find a Common Pence box (stylishly made of wood), and hold your card against it. A quick tap on the box takes 50 pence from your balance, hold it there to give it all away.

This is a first step in Whitehurst’s plan to utilize the touch payment technology of future credit cards and devices that used RFID (radio frequency identification) or NFC (near-field communication) for good causes. “The applications for the project span all forms of fundraising,” he says. “I hope Common Pence can encourage tactile generosity.” He hasn’t said which charities would benefit, but a prototype Common Pence box is marked “Prostate Cancer UK.”

The idea makes sense. Modern transit passes function only in a very specific setting—that transportation network—and lots of people never spend their full balance before leaving town. Whatever money’s left is tied to a card that ends up in the garbage or a scrapbook. In New York, unspent money on MetroCards added up to nearly $500 million between 2000 and 2010, The New York Times reported. So if you can redirect that money to worthy causes, and the technology makes it easy, why not? Well, Whitehurst—who’s in talks with the governing body for London’s public transportation—isn’t the first to build something like this. And the idea hasn’t caught on yet.