Subway stations could soon allow you to walk through without needing to tap your card

For all of us who have to put up with people fumbling for their train passes, holding up the line at the gantry, this technology upgrade is set to save you a few frustrated seconds.

Singapore plans to trial a new system at rail stations that will let commuters walk straight through a station gantry, without having to stop and tap a train pass, Today Online reports.

The new gantries will boast long-range RFID, which is purportedly able to detect fare cards in someone's bag. The transport authority is also considering Bluetooth as an alternative technology to achieve the same effect.

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The current transport cards, under Singapore's EZ-Link system, use short-range RFID, and need to be tapped on the gantry reader. The system is similar to those used in plenty of other cities in the UK, Japan, and Hong Kong.

While the concept is certainly futuristic, it appears that Singapore was considering a far more intrusive system about two years ago. That system, based on the "Be-In/Be-Out" model, would track an individual as they moved through the train network, from entering a station to final destination, in order to calculate the right fare.

Plenty of other places have toyed with this idea too, including the UK, and Dubai. Many of the concept ideas relied on Bluetooth, and some vendors say that'll allow people to do away with the entire train pass, and use their phones as their individual tickets.

It certainly sounds convenient, but the privacy issues associated with the concept sound like a pretty hairy mess.