Q. Dwight Mengel: Would TRI-MET consider a smartcard option to include all transportation providers: para-transit, taxi, etc?
A. Taxi, right now that is not in our plans. I know that many agencies seek to leverage their investment. And use fare collection as a jump off point to expand to other markets. Right now that is not a primary target for us. However, we're speaking with the city of Portland on the parking side. We use some of their display machines at our garages. There will be collaboration with other parties, but that is not what is driving our primary need.
Q. A.J. Knauer: What product brands has Trimet considered?
A. None. We're still developing what our needs are. There's no point really looking at, you know, who is available. Or what brands are better than others. We first need to be clear about what we want before we go out to the vendor community.
Q. Steven Fern: Do you expect to link cash and electronic fare collection at the farebox or as a backend process?
A. Okay. I'm not quite sure what that means. But can give a couple of examples where you can use cash at a fare box and getting is electronic in return. Once you have a card reader attached to your fare boxes it possible to deposit cash and have that cash value loaded on to the card. Or even, for example, buy your pass by inserting cash into the fare box and then tapping your card or key fob to the reader and have that loaded on to your card. But then there are issues with larger cash payments, of slowing down boarding. While it's possible, that's probably not the preferred way of loading value on to cards. Ticket vending machines, online payments and so on are probably better.
Facilitator comments: If that wasn't exactly completely answering your question get a dialog together with us. Email to get a follow-up if you would like.
Q. David Barrett: Is there consideration of using smartcard for driver logons to CAD/AVL with same or independent reader from the fare collection?
A. This answer could not be reconstructed. Please contact any of the presenters listed at the beginning of the Question and Answer transcripts (the beginning of this document).
Q. Chris Mitchell: Where would a person start in the search for a contactless market supplier?
A. Well, there's - for a contactless market supplier - there are different approaches. Whether you are looking for a complete system, you know, or if you're looking to go piecemeal, by working with a [Indiscernible] reader, an [Indiscernible] card. And taking a different approach to the settlement portion. It really depends on what you are looking to accomplish. You can do a Google search. Or go to the smart card alliance. You can take a look at the vendor's page there. You can access that information there. You can find about 30 to 40 different hardware providers that are manufacturing a contactless reader. You can go to the [Indiscernible] website and go to their comps page. There are 15 to 20 different vendors that are offering products for fare collection. That can be anything from a [Indiscernible] reader to a card manufacture such as [Indiscernible]. Or different companies all competing in this. It really depends on what type of an approach you are looking to go forward with. Again, if that's not the answer that you are looking for, send me an email. I'll, I'll go further.
I would like to add that any of these industry associations that are mentioned here would be more than happy to bend your ear. Maybe one last thing. There's another trend that I'm seeing as part of my work group eight, is the peripheral approach. Maybe that means that you are working with a peripheral reader, taking that approach. As opposed to going out and replacing all of fare boxes. Maybe you're enhancing it with a reader.
Q. Maurice Pearl: How durable are the cards?
A. Different vendors will have different warranty periods for the card. There are different restraints we're talking about. If you look at MARTA, clearly you're going to get a much shorter life span of that card. Limited use really varies, if you are talking to a different transit association. How long they expect a limited paper ticket to last. I know that certain agencies have said if a limited use paper ticket will support 40 presentations to my reader, within my route, that's how we're, that's acceptable to us. Now alternatively you have other types. The card body, that's a bit of a science to it. Depending on what material you are looking to work with. Whether you are working with a PVC material or a composite material. Some things may with stand heat or cold. There are other things to consider.
I'll chime in too. I pulled out my old smart trip card. The picture is gone on it. But I read October 9 to 12, 2001. I don't use it every day. But every time in D.C. it still works. That's wonderful. There was a nice article yesterday in the Washington Post that talked about smart trip. It had a nice picture in there of the different card layers that go into the manufacturing of the smart trip card. Anyone who is interested, if you were to look at the Washington post, I believe the article was rocket science.
Q. Tom Strader: It seems that one of the success factors for contactless payment platforms is driving customers away from cash. One strategy might be to charge a premium fare for those paying with cash. Will this cause problems in the area of transit equity, where an individual using cash may be less likely to pay the higher fare?
A. I'm sitting in Massachusetts, in Boston there's a premium if you don't use the Charlie card. It is in place in the industry. Thomas, or Tom do you want to chime in? Tom Parker have you done any of that?
Contactless can drive people away from cash. One strategy might to be charge a previous yum, does that cause problems with transit equity?
I know that we do something like that. It's more of not charging, incentive of a discount to buy high value tickets. We've also done, we've had the opportunity to go out and sample the market. Other areas to see what others have done. We found that if you really want to drive people to use a certain product, then what you do, you incentivize them. A study we did, right there on the east coast when the I-90, when they were looking at people using the fast pass, the device they use to pay tolls. What they did, they made the cash lines, they had 20 lines, the cash lines were only two lines, the other 18 were all card-based. And people very soon caught on if they want to go through faster and quicker they were going to get the fast pass. So, we've used that same model. If we want to drive a certain type of card, that's one of the things we would consider.
Thanks Tom. It seems all of a sudden we have lots and lots of questions am I'm going to skip around. One that is simple.
Q. What does UTFS stand for?
A. Universal transit fare card standards. On the presentation we've got the contact information.
Q. Renee Haider: What is the timeline for BART to do an AFC pilot?
A. An AFC pilot? Maybe NFC. We're in the process of doing testing now. We anticipate starting the pilot at the first of the year.
Q. Rick Snyder: What would a reasonable time frame be for implementation of a smart card based fare collection system?
A. It ranges. We've set out a four year preparation timeline with the last year being where we implement the system. The UTA, which is the Utah Transportation Authority, they did it in less than a year. But they used a pretty interactive process with the vendors. The reason I didn't hear the question, there was a, another one that talked about credit cards, I was pulling up the UTA request for proposals. It ranges. I would say for a small system, to be able to pull it off in about a year or year and a half shouldn't be a problem. For larger agencies it would take longer.
Q. Bob Hughes: Where would you get a copy of these standards to better understand them?
A. We've got our website. I'm not sure, I haven't looked at it in a while. But if you want a copy send Martin an email. He will send it to you, it's available for free. If you were talking about other standards the [ Indiscernible ] standards are available for a fee. I assume you're talking about the CMFS standard. You would have to check on the website for the standards.
Q. Renee Haider: Please define what you mean by limited use cards
A. With a limited use ticket in CMFS, which is a subset of the UTFS, they define it as fare ultra-light. I think a limited use somewhat implies you don't want to say disposable. There's a hard cost to these. So a limited use ticket is something that maybe in a paper form. It uses contactless technology. Still provides you with the same benefits of the contactless, which is speed, ease of use, convenient, but something with a shorter life span than a full rigid card that you carry in your wallet. A lot of times you're talking of a paper-based product.
Right. Also, it is probably less robust. Again, we're going to respond to all of these through a distribution at a later date. That can maybe be the [ Indiscernible ] definition. I'm sure there's an ISO definition. We can provide the actual book definition.
The CMFS standard, we've taken it from the [ Indiscernible ] standard. Non [ Indiscernible ] processor generally designed to satisfy the need for a low cost fare media outdate with limited functionality and featured. Reduced durability, lower security when compared to a typical full featured card.
Q. Karin Caine: Why is the United States so far behind other countries in these technologies?
A. I'll start that rolling. In the Far East, the public is very techno centric, they really like gadgets. There's not as much density of transit as in Europe. Those things right there really speak to that. You need to quickly get people through. It might not be as acute of an issue in the United States. Anyone else?
Q. Joseph Moriarty: Are there any traditional commuter properties that use contactless fare media?
A. There's an interesting element. The commuter rail is largely a, you have conductors going through, they look at flash passes and make change and take money for fare. That's an interesting mode. Does anyone know of maybe some agencies that might be out there, at least piloting things like hand-helds or something like that?
I do know that here in the Bay Area we have Amtrak. They're looking at a few tests with a smart card.
Here in Boston I know that the MTBA is investigating the problem. I wait with baited breath. I am a commuter rail rider. It's unfortunate, but I have to use a magnetic ticket. The Charlie card is not used with the rail. I think that's a work in progress. Probably would have to be hand held-based. It is sort of that proof of payment, flash pass type of environment. The demographic is commuters. There's big ridership at rush hours. And very low at other times. We could do a little research and see if there's some pilots being rolled out that would address that.
Q. John Pickett: Will the presentation be available?
Q. Kevin Danke: When card is read on bus, is there any reconciliation or only after bus returns to shop?
A. I would say that, it could vary. The transactions would be offline and uploaded when the bus returns. I know, a long timing a there was work done in Phoenix that might have been done on the bus. Tom, do you have knowledge of that?
No, not real practical. Because we only run heavy rail here, I don't have a lot of knowledge in that.
Tim, there are different vendor approaches to how they've tried to handle offline or online transfers. When it comes to the bus, some have proposed maybe some relationship with someone like a Verizon that would lease them a high speed connection to turn that into an online environment. You know, I know other solutions where, again, it depends on what type, how heavy of ridership we're talking on a bus. If you have smaller numbers, you know, I know of even some more simple approaches. Not an online, but offline when it comes. Where they have removal media or storage on the reader. So -- different vendors according to different ridership will propose different solutions. Sorry for such a vague answer.
This is a very good question. It highlights a key difference between the traditional fare payment system and the advanced financial industry systems. Traditional system, where you are using a smart card, the smart card and the reader have all of the information they need to calculate the fare and know if the card is good, whether it's valid--so they are suited for offline transactions.
If you go do a contactless credit card for payment, unless on a bus you can maintain continuous communication, the system can then forward the transaction for authorization you in essence to offline, which involves some risks. You can download [ Indiscernible ] and so on. But, again, it depends how often you come into contact with a communication mode where you can exchange data. As of right now, I would say that's one of the key differences between the two systems and why so far credit card payment on buses is not necessarily that widely used.
Excellent point. Risk is now a factor that has to factor in. It's a business issue that you have to discuss. What you are comfortable doing. That needs to be hammered out with your partners. That was a great point.
Tom Stout: Dwight Mengel: What is an account system? Is it like EasyPass - an auto rechargeable card?
A. An account system is instead of the computations and heavy lifting on the front end between the card and reader. The card identifies itself and a lot of the heavy lifting is centralized in the central system. Anyone else?
Yeah, I mean. That's right. Think of the credit/debt cards a account-based system. The information that the card provides, it has some sort of unique identifier. That identity and the amount of the transaction is calculated further away from the card reader at some other point.
Deborah Rowey: When implementing the smartcard, debit/credit card system, did you include the banking institution information to obtain the firm that will be handling the transactions included in the fare collection RFP or solicited separately?
A. One question that asked if you wanted to implement a cabinetless credit card-based system whether you should include the banking institution as a part of requirement in the RFP. And I'm trying to find that question, scrolling down. Here it is. Do you include the banking institution information to obtain the firm that will be handling the transactions?
Um, I don't know. But the UTA in their RFP, they just made their selection recently. They were very broad. I don't think they dictated which banking institution they needed to, the vendor needed to work with. I think they left it open. As to who would partner with it. The thing is with the credit/debt-based systems is that it's new. We haven't been approached by a bank. I'm not sure if it's that competitive of an environment right now. So I think if agencies are thinking about this, they really should talk to a couple of banking institutions to make sure they would be interested in participating in this.
Q. The smart card credit card system, do you obtain the firm that is handling the transaction included in the fair collection RFP?
A. That's the question that I tried to answer earlier. Okay. Sorry. What are typical band width requirements?
Is that a little detailed for this? I don't know of requirements. I know different vendors have different approaches as the bus returns to the depot. I'm not certain. I know of different operators, or systems that have a different approach to that.
Here with BART, we have used T1's, very successfully in the past. We migrated from T1's. It seemed to be extremely efficient and effective.
Q. Kelly Priestley: Sound Transit will be implementing fare cards and readers on its Commuter Service.
A. Tim, there was a comment added. I'm not clear from the comment whether it's based on fixed readers or portable readers. Perhaps whoever entered that. Kelly Priestly, if you wanted to expound on that, that would be great. That would be a good discussion point for us, you know, post presentation to trade emails, or what-not.
Q. Katherine Driscol: What are the security concerns with this form of information transmission?
A. Um, what are the security concerns with this form of information transmission? Assume she means card to reader. Tom and Mike. Somebody want to take that on? Or not?
I know there's different, you know. If you're talking about using a financial payment branded card, there's PCI issues that you must, they're strict that you must comply with. If you use a proprietary approach, a system's integrator is going to be the ones offering the integrity to the system. There's different approaches. [ Indiscernible ] is a communication protocol. It doesn't touch anything having to do with any type of security to how you exchange data. So -- I'm far from any cryptographer.
Tim, Thomas. Encryption is one area. The other is the ability to read the card or device. So -- within the CMFS there's a CMFS standard, there's a requirement that allows you to make sure that your reader and the card are both secure in the sense that unless you have the appropriate chip that has the codes in them and the card says okay, you are a card reader that I recognize that is secure, then the card cannot be read by somebody else. It cannot be read to the extent to pull the information off of it. That's with a traditional fare system. With the bank card systems, it's a credit card, again. Anytime you go to use smart cards you have the possibility of adding much more security than with magnetic stripe cards. With these credit card-based systems it is much easier for someone to get their hands on a contactless card reader. There's literally tens of thousands of them. As opposed to a card reader that has a chip in it that is programmed by the agency for its own private card scheme.
