Attendees of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Fare Collection Workshop, which starts today in Los Angeles, will be "tapping" their way across L.A., courtesy of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority ("Metro").
Metro has teamed with its regional fare collection systems integrator Cubic Transportation Systems, Inc., a subsidiary of Cubic Corporation (AMEX: CUB), to host a demonstration of the agency's Transit Access Pass (TAP), using a new ANSI (American National Standards Institute) "Limited Use" version of a smart fare card, a first for a West Coast transit agency.
Attendees and select Metro employees were issued a free paper Limited Use card and during the five-day conference, will be able to use it on the Cubic-designed smart card system, which has been installed on all of Metro's rail stations and its 2,600 buses. The system will include more than 6,000 "smart card-enabled" devices including fareboxes, ticket vending machines, merchant and operator point-of-sale terminals, rail validators and handheld devices.
"The APTA conference is the perfect opportunity to showcase our new system as fare collection and revenue management professionals representing transit agencies around the U.S. will be in attendance," said Jane Matsumoto, project manager for Metro. "We will be rolling out the TAP smart cards incrementally and expect them to be in wide circulation across L.A. county hopefully within several years, making absolutely certain that we do this gradually and carefully to ensure the smooth transition to a fully smart card-capable system."
By summer 2007 TAP cards issued will exceed 35,000 in number, including those used by University of California, Los Angeles students, select businesses and Metro staff.
The Limited Use cards - provided by German manufacturer Giesecke & Devrient and French manufacturer ASK - are a recyclable paper-based product designed for short term use by occasional riders including tourists. The recent launch of the Cubic-designed Breeze smart card system for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) marked the first transit system in the U.S. to introduce both a full-featured and Limited-Use smart card as their fare media, making MARTA an all smart card system.
With Cubic's completion of the installation of all field equipment for Metro's rail and bus services, the second phase now is underway to complete the Regional Central Data Collection System (RCDCS), which will provide the regional back office and clearinghouse functions needed to perform funds settlement and financial reconciliation and manage data for the regional participants. The system will be used to generate reports; manage the Autoload function and hotlist files; perform credit/debit card transaction processing; and distribute TAP card information to the TAP services providers.
In the coming months, eleven other independent transit operators across Los Angeles County will join the Universal Fare System, furthering the goal of a seamless system for the region. Soon public transit commuters from surrounding cities and communities will be able to travel across the county switching from one transit operator's system to another using one smart card to pay for fares.
In another milestone for Metro, APTA named Metro the 2006 Outstanding Transportation System in the Nation.
"We are proud to be associated with this award-winning system. Los Angeles is becoming a benchmark for how to successfully operate a large regional transit system," said Richard Efland, president and CEO of Cubic Transportation Systems, Inc.
Cubic has installed similar smart card-based systems in Washington, D.C./Maryland, Chicago, Atlanta, London and Brisbane, Australia.