consider smart card ticketing system on the 13th of March, 2003. -- ERG trade data forum

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Date Posted: 06:17:58 02/24/03 Mon
Author: Seattle epryne@seattletimes.com
Subject:

consider smart card ticketing system on the 13th of March, 2003.

Posted by: lost Feb 24 2003 1:57:19:187PM
Reply to post # by Go to Post #
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From weblink, http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=smartcard12m&date=20030212&query=%22Smart+Card%22
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News worth reading, looks like Seattle Transit Authority set to consider smart card ticketing system on the 13th of March, 2003.
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Local News: Wednesday, February 12, 2003
'Smart card' gets transit agencies' conditional OK
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By Eric Pryne Seattle Times staff reporter
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Negotiators for six transit agencies have reached tentative agreement on a plan that within three years could provide travelers with a computerized "smart card" to pay bus, rail and ferry fares regionwide.
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The negotiators have drafted two documents: an inter-government agreement setting up the system, and a 13-year, $63 million contract with an Australian firm to install and operate it.
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The board of Community Transit, which operates a Snohomish County-based bus system, endorsed the agreement last week. The boards of the five other agencies � Sound Transit, King County Metro Transit, Pierce Transit, Kitsap Transit and Washington State Ferries � are expected to take it up next month.
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If all goes according to plan, transit commuters could have smart cards in their wallets by the end of 2005.
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But several obstacles loom. Pierce Transit's chief executive officer says his agency has reservations, and its participation isn't a sure thing. "This is as complex a project as I've seen in my 22 years here," said CEO Don Monroe.
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Tiny Everett Transit already has withdrawn from the project. And the state ferry system says its continued involvement hinges on more money from the Legislature.
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But Candace Carlson, a Metro employee who heads the so-called Regional Fare Coordination Project, said that, while it would be preferable to involve every regional transit agency, the program can proceed with as few as two.
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"I think you need King County and Sound Transit as the core," she said.
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King County Executive Ron Sims yesterday endorsed the agreement and contract, which now go to the Metropolitan King County Council. "It's a major step forward for users of mass transit," he said.
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The Sound Transit board is scheduled to take up the smart-card proposal March 13.
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Inter-agency transit smart cards already are in use in several urban areas, including Chicago, Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Bay Area. The cards, about the size of credit cards, contain microchips that can be "loaded" with cash value and transit-pass information; and antennas allow scanning devices to deduct fares.
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The attraction for consumers is greater convenience. The attraction for transit agencies is greater efficiency.
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Planners began studying a smart-card system for the Seattle area nine years ago, Carlson said. The effort has proceeded in fits and starts.
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Elimination in 2000 of the state motor-vehicle excise tax, a major source of transportation money, slowed the project. Just last week a report by the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank, said negotiations recently had broken down because transit agencies couldn't compromise on revenue sharing and other issues.
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"Regionalism is a challenge; this is six agencies trying to do a technical project," Carlson said yesterday. "But I can assure you that discussions have never broken down."
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The proposed system would cost $30 million to install and $33 million to operate over 13 years, but Carlson said tax increases likely wouldn't be needed to pay for it.
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About two-thirds of the capital costs already are covered by Sound Transit, federal grants and a gift from Boeing, she said. Metro Transit would pay more than 70 percent of the system's operating costs, but Carlson said it should cost about the same to operate as the paper-based fare-collection system it would replace.
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The proposed contractor is ERG Transit Systems, an Australian company that has installed and operated automated fare-collection systems in more than 200 places worldwide, including Toronto, San Francisco and Ventura County, Calif.
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The smart-card project has its skeptics. "We're still in the process of educating our board here," said Monroe of Pierce Transit. "This isn't something that's been operating very long. Is there a good business case for this? Will it provide everything it's supposed to, on a time line that makes sense?"
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Snohomish County Councilman Gary Nelson, R-Edmonds, until this week chairman of the Community Transit board, said concerns about revenue distribution, liability and cash flow made him hesitant to support the smart-card system as recently as a year ago.
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Ultimately, he said, he decided it made sense because it would save Community Transit passengers money.
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State ferry-system spokeswoman Pat Patterson said the agency needs $250,000 every two years from the Legislature to cover its share of the project's operating costs. That's the only roadblock to the agency's participation, she said.
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"This is an issue about trying to make the ferry system more modern," she said. "It makes sense for us to be a part of it."
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Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com
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