Under regulations that went into effect January 1, 2009, all taxis licensed by the City of Boston are required to provide credit card payment systems for use by passengers. VTS has provided dispatch technology to the largest radio association, which uses VeriFone's payment and information systems exclusively in 510 vehicles operating under the Top Cab and City Cab brands.

"VTS is the clear leader in the taxi payment and passenger information system market," said John Ford, president and owner of Top Cab, Inc., and City Cab. "Passengers increasingly want to pay with credit cards and our drivers have realized additional per-trip revenues by having this capability, despite the problems in the economy."

The Boston Police Hackney Carriage Unit currently licenses 1,825 medallions and VTS systems are deployed in almost half of those licensed taxis. VTS is also the sole supplier of systems in Philadelphia and the largest supplier in New York City.

"We're thrilled by the response in the Boston market, including with suburban taxi companies," said Amos Tamam, president of VTS. "Boston is on the leading edge of efforts underway across the country to utilize automation and electronic payment to improve efficiency of taxi fleets and enhance the passenger experience with convenience, information and entertainment."

VTS provides next-generation solutions that deliver wireless payment, navigation, dispatch, text messaging, and real-time information to the transit, vehicle for hire, dispatch, and cargo transportation industries.

The VTS systems deployed in Boston are based on VeriFone's MX870 multimedia payment systems, which support secure credit card transactions. The MX870 is the leading choice for organizations that want to leverage full featured automation capabilities such as dispatch automation, text messaging, voice guided navigation, real-time moving map functionality and passenger information delivery.