You don't have to be racing to use the same things that people use in races.
Perhaps time to drag the AUK into the 21st century on the whole brevet card thing?
...
LEL kind of does that already with the barcode scanning at each control and the rider tracking system. What would be interesting (in terms of this debate at least) is how reliable that was during the event, e.g.
How many times was a paper Brevet card not signed at a control?
How many times was this corrected by referring to the backup paper notes taken at a control? (Rather than referral to other evidence...)
How many times was the Brevet Card barcode scan used as a backup for an unsigned brevet card?
How many times was the Brevet Card not scanned at a control?
The problem with:-
...the riders number would be inputted into the system...
Where does the person inputting the number get it?
- Quite a number of the riders won't remember their number (especially when tired) or will misremember it (incorrect data is worse than no data)
- Quite a number of riders don't speak English so can't be asked for their number
- Numbers pinned to a rider fall off, or are pinned to different jerseys/jackets/etc. Forcing people to wear a visible number is a bad idea.
If you need to have something that it's written down on to present (which most Audax riders will be familiar with) then you've not solved the actual problem you set out to solve, you just changed the shape/size of the brevet card to something people aren't familiar with.
Timing chips are a possible solution, but definitely not reliable enough for Brevet Validation purposes (my PBP 2011 electronic record isn't complete despite me passing over all of the requisite timing mats).
Paper brevet cards (with backup paper lists at each control) represent the most reliable system at present. I don't see this changing before 2021. The fact the cards could be scanned for the rider tracking system was a bonus (and meant that there was a second backup at the controls).
GPS tracklogs aren't reliable enough, and easily forged. (I'd be interested when someone produces a device that produces cryptographically signed trackpoints.)