摘要: |
The New York City, New Jersey region has one of the most comprehensive and complex transportation systems in the United States. Over the past ten years, great strides have been made to simplify payments by instituting electronic toll and fare collection systems. Almost a decade ago, the Electronic Toll Collection Interagency Group was formed and E-ZPass has since become the de facto regional standard for highway, bridge, and tunnel toll payments. New York City Transit has evolved from tokens to their highly successful magnetic strip intermodal MetroCard for subways and buses. The Port Authority of New York and New Jerseys PATH magnetic stripe fare payment system has also served well, but is due for replacement. With 3.5 billion transit and toll transactions, and annual revenues totaling nearly $7 billion, we are on the brink of instituting the next generation of an electronic fare payments system. The 3 major transit agencies Metropolitan Transportation Authority, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and New Jersey Transit have initiated discussions about the use of smart cards as the common medium for the next generation of transit electronic fare payments systems. These discussions are targeting the identification of capital funding sources and financing/procurement strategies, as well as operational and administrative functions, technological standards and customer acceptance issues. |