Thats a cool system and all (NY Open Payment) but how does it handle passes and concession fares? I'd rather a system that can accomodate both.
It has been mentioned a couple of dozen times in this thread how that could happen.
Anyway, the card acts to identify an individual and shows that you entered (and probably exited) at stops Foo and Bar at specific times. That's all (end of story). Any and all fare payment rules happen on a software package outside of the card.
The software rules in the backend could do any of the following with that information:
1) Show that since you purchased a pass on the 2nd, which is good for 30 days, no charge should be made
2) Charge you for a single trip.
3) Observe that you took 3 other trips that day and automatically charge you for a single day pass instead of 4 individual trips.
4) Observe that this was your 10th trip that month and charge you a reduced fare instead of full fare.
5) Anything else you can imagine.
The reason Open Payment doesn't specify these rules is that every transit operator will want something different. Presto goes with decreasing fare values (no monthly passes); London will probably want to automatically bill for the lowest rate (day pass or monthly pass value) when the threshold is crossed; Toronto will inevitably want a different billing algorithm.
New York is likely to maintain the exact same billing rules as they have today.
Again, the card acts to identify that an individual entered/exited the system at a specific time. What the transit authority does with that information, and presents to Visa/Mastercard for a charge is entirely up to them and is a political/business decision, not a technical one.