The MT Position

Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor

As Houston Metro’s president, Frank Wilson, told me, transit buses are the most advanced vehicles you can find on the road today. And no wonder, with the hefty price tag that comes with each of them. But these paragons of high tech can quickly get left behind. For every advanced vehicle on the road, there are probably several more out of date or way past their retirement age. The question then becomes what’s the technology level at your agency beyond your fleet?

Cubic announced its new Tri-Reader this week — an all-in-one reader that will process bank cards, pre-paid cards and smart card-enabled cell phones. This got me to thinking about the technology level of transit and how some agencies compare to others. How advanced is your agency?

Does your agency still accept paper transfers? Does it use paper fare cards? Does it have smart cards? Has it installed a unified fare card system for a variety of local systems? Does it have tap payment capability?

The gamut from low tech to leading- (even bleeding) edge tech is getting wider every year. While some agencies are leading the way, continually upgrading their systems, others are mired in the past. And this is just fare collection!

Of course, it seems transit will always have an albatross around its neck. In this case it probably is cash. Have you seen those Visa commercials where the shopping Nirvana comes to a screeching halt when someone pulls out some cash? Anyone who is filing onto a bus and the guy ahead of them can’t get his crumpled dollars into the farebox knows this all to well. But cash just won’t go away. I’ve spoken to several agencies who would gladly give up cash as a means of payment if they could.

Now think about that for a minute. While transit has to accommodate the most basic form of payment, it is always striving to adapt to the most advanced. Now it looks like tap payment is the next big thing — which for a fleeting moment seemed to be accepting credit and debit cards.

But that may not be the leading-edge tech for long. Already transit agencies are experimenting with cell phones being used for payment. Sure, it’s basically another form of tap, but it’s still a new process and who knows if the various phone manufacturers, let alone service providers, will adapt a standard for the technology.

Transit agencies need to stay on top of this situation to get the best bang for their buck when they do decide to make a technology upgrade. With budgets as tight as they are, transit agencies just don’t have the money to upgrade a system and have to upgrade it again within the next five years.

I guess that’s why transit buses are the most advanced vehicles on the road — they have to be just to keep up.

Check out Mass Transit’s new Top 40 Under 40 promotion on our Web site. We’re looking to recognize transit’s best and brightest under the age of 40 in an upcoming issue. Click on the link and you can read more about it and nominate yourself or any of your colleagues.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
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This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 8:23 am and is filed under MT Position. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.