Schlumberger Electronic Transactions announced what may be the biggest deployment of smart card devices in North America: a deal to convert 50,000 coin-operated laundry machines over two years.
The French chip card company, which has U.S. headquarters in Moorestown, N.J., will install the smart card readers in 23 states in the Northeast, Midwest, and Southeast. The laundry machines are owned by Mac-Gray Corp. of Cambridge, Mass.
Mac-Gray, which operates 120,000 card- and coin-operated laundry machines in apartment buildings and college dormitories, began testing smart card technology last April. So far it has 15,000 machines that accept chip cards from Schlumberger.
Michael H. Smith, general manager of Schlumberger's North American division, said automatic laundries are a perfect application for smart cards. They are "most successful in applications that replace coins, such as pay telephones and parking meters."
Mac-Gray will sell the laundry-machine cards to the management of each building, which will then have the option of distributing them free to residents or charging a small fee. Once the residents have the cards, they can load them with values ranging from $5 to $95.
Stewart MacDonald, chairman and chief executive officer of Mac-Gray, said, "It makes it easy for residents to do their laundry whenever their time permits, without regard to whether they have correct change."
Both companies said they would like to explore using smart cards in food and drink vending machines and for door access.
"The availability of technology is not a limiting factor, because Schlumberger's arsenal of products is quite wide," Mr. MacDonald said.
More of a challenge, he said, is consumer acceptance. Building residents needed to be educated about how the cards work.
"Persuading someone a card is a more secure form of access to an area than a good old-fashioned key takes some teaching," Mr. MacDonald said.
But he also sees his program serving an educational role.
"We have access to millions of consumers, and smart cards bring a new level of convenience to them," Mr. MacDonald said.
"In addition, the technology benefits the property owners and managers we serve in that it differentiates their properties and helps them to attract and retain residents."
Jerome Svigals, a consultant in Redwood City, Calif., said smart cards can make transactions faster and more convenient while cutting the cost of equipment and machine servicing.
One drawback, Mr. Svigals said, was that though coins were being eliminated from the laundry machines, vandals might attack the dispensers that accept and store currency.
