28 DECEMBER 2013/JANUARY 2014 Mass TransiT www.MassTransitmag.com

FARE COLLECTION

For Nat Parker, CEO of GlobeSher-

pa, mobile ticketing makes a lot

of sense in today’s increasingly

electronic world.

Mobile phones — especially

smartphones — are now common

devices possessed by the vast ma-

jority of the populous of North

America. Everywhere you look,

someone is using one of these

phones for various tasks ranging

from banking to menial updates to

their social media accounts.

Parker noticed a lot of people use

their smartphones while on a bus or

a train, but not to access transit.

“We’re transit riders,” Parker said.

“You know, it’s funny, it blows me

away how many developers when

we go to APTA or the Smart Card Al-

liance is a lot of them don’t ride the

bus and they don’t really ride transit.

For us, we believe in staying in touch

with the experience of the user on an

ongoing basis so we can ask ourselves

how we can make this easier.”

RISE OF THE MOBILE PHONE

Fare collection companies and transit

agencies are pushing mobile ticketing

because of opportunities it presents

to lower fare collection costs while

ofering appealing ways for riders

to pay. Kim Green, president of SPX

Genfare, said unlike traditional fare

media, riders purchase the majority

of the equipment as opposed to the

transit agency and with a Pew Re-

search Center showing 91 percent of

adults have cell phones, it shows a

deep market penetration.

“In transit it’s still kind of new, but

there have been a number of pilot

programs using mobile ticketing with

some very impressive results,” Green

said. “We expect to see this widely ad-

opted in the next several years.”

According to a mobile ticketing

report by Juniper Research, one in

eight mobile subscribers will use

their device for airline, bus, rail fes-

tival, cinema and sporting events by

2015. About 500 million people are

projected to use a mobile device for

transit access by 2015.

On Sept. 16, Dallas Area Rapid

Transit launched GoPass, its new mo-

bile ticketing option for customers.

When launched leaders planned to

have 50,000 people download the app

and use it by year’s end, but just six

weeks into the program, ofcials said

25,000 people had it on their phone.

“At this point we’ve had to revise

our overall year end to 60,000,” said

David Leininger, executive vice pres-

ident and chief fnancial ofcer for

DART. “But when we launched it, we

thought at the time that 50,000 was

a little aggressive.”

About 1,000 people per day are

downloading GoPass, Leininger said.

With all the downloads, he said they’re

also happy with the feedback DART is

getting about the mobile option.

Going Mobile

Mobile ticketing lets transit agencies leverage customer phones to provide more efficient ticketing.

Joe Petrie

Mobile ticketing growth continues as popularity explodes with riders.

mass_28-31_1213Mobile.indd 28 11/26/13 2:59 PM

29

“It has been a very, very good intro-

duction and the customers really, really

like it,” Leininger said. “Customers have

been giving a lot of positive feedback

and we’ve gotten a lot of positive press.”

TriMet and the Portland Streetcar

also launched its new ticketing app

in September, which was developed

by GlobeSherpa to work on both

systems. In its frst six weeks, Parker

said there were 16,000 regular users,

18,000 total users, 158,000 tickets sold

and more than $700,000 in sales.

“We didn’t know what to expect, but

TriMet had some numbers that were

much lower,” Parker said. “We were

very bullish on mobile payments.”

INTEGRATING TRANSIT

WITH SMARTPHONES

Amol Deshmukh, vice president of

mobile fnancial services solutions

at Gemalto, said mobile payments

are attractive because of the advent

of near feld communication (NFC) in

cell phones, which changes the tick-

eting infrastructure for transit agen-

cies, who don’t have to use their own

equipment as fare media.

It also transforms how passes are

used because riders can then use

the same app to purchase goods at

a nearby store or for other events,

which allows agencies to have their

app become a common tool for riders

to use in everyday life.

“We’re seeing a lot of interest from

diferent players in diferent indus-

tries,” he said. “We have the phone

ready to use, so why not have them

use it then when they go to Hertz to

access a car, or when they check into a

hotel. Why does the user have to stop

at a front desk when they can start

getting their room key on their phone

that’s enabled for the hours they’re

supposed to be there, so they can then

walk directly to their room.”

GoPass is a little more intricate

than just acting as a ticket for getting

onto DART buses and trains. Te app

can also be used to board nearby Den-

ton County Transit Authority (DCTA)

and Fort Worth Transit Authority (Te

T), which see a lot of crossover into

DART due to the three system’s prox-

imities in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Te app also has ofers and spe-

cials for events in the region, next

bus information and an integrated

trip planner allows users to fnd their

transit route on any system utilizing

Google trip planning.

Leininger said there’s a lot of in-

terest with large venues in the area

to allow the GoPass to be a single

transaction unit for access to con-

ventions and they’re also develop-

ing a push notifcation system, which

with permission by the user, could

allow GoPass to send information

about events and specials, making

it even more versatile.

“We really wanted more than a

payment product,” Leininger said.

“We wanted this to be a robust transit

product riders will get to use a lot.”

SECURITY IN TECHNOLOGY

Security is a concern for DART, Le-

ininger said, so when setting up the

app, planners took the extraordinary

measures to make sure the agency

or Unwire doesn’t have access to the

customer’s credit card information.

“Tat was very important because

the whole issue of who has access to

the credit cards, the names, the pass-

codes is something we don’t have to

worry about,” he said.

Green said a lot of longtime tran-

sit riders like the security of having

a traditional fare card as opposed to

mobile tickets, but questions about

the new technology can be overcome

with proper planning of new fare col-

lection equipment.

“We believe that agencies need to

have a whole myriad of options for

customers,” he said. “Some appeal

more than others to everyday riders.”

Unlike changes from cash and pa-

per media to fare cards or smart cards,

mobile ticketing can be implemented

for less cost given mobile devices are

purchased by the users, not the agen-

cy. Parker said the agency can either

implement NFC devices on fare ma-

chines or scanners or mobile ticketing

can also be used in a fash pass fashion

with proper training to operators.

“You can do a tap where the color

changes or there’s an animation, so

riders can’t just take a screenshot and

give it to a friend,” Parker said. “Like on

the TriMet ticket it looks like a TriMet

bus and you see a city scape, but when

you tap on it, it turns on the lights and

that’s the Easter egg type of features

that riders just absolutely love.”

Deshmukh said there’s also added

safety built into the fact that people

are more protective of their smart-

phones than other items, so they take

extra care to keep them secure.

“It can start saving money now

in costs for cards lost and stolen,” he

said. “Te mobile phone is owned by

the user and even when it comes to a

credit card, if I leave it at a restaurant,

I don’t go back in to get it, I cancel it. Fareboxes can be set to take both mobile and traditional media.

SPX Genfare

Scanners can pick up fare media set up on smart phones.

SPX Genfare

mass_28-31_1213Mobile.indd 29 11/26/13 2:59 PM

30 DECEMBER 2013/JANUARY 2014 Mass TransiT www.MassTransitmag.com

FARE COLLECTION

“Maybe that makes me lazy, but it

is easier to go home and call and

cancel it. But if it’s my phone I leave, I go

back and get it. I never leave the park-

ing lot not knowing if I have my phone.”

GROWTH WILL REMAIN ROBUST

Mobile ticketing can also be put in place

quickly. Leininger said DART signed its

contract with Unwire in October 2012,

so it only took 11 months to bring it

online. Te biggest issue with setting

up mobile ticketing was training more

than 1,000 operators and customer ser-

vice agents, then developing customer

awareness about the new product.

“Te technology and this kind

of medium is what I’d say is noth-

ing new,” Leininger said. “We’re not

breaking atoms or anything like that.”

Gemalto is setting up a mobile

payment unit for the Rio de Janeiro

transit system to work with the Rio-

Card. A similar program is being set

up to work with the Octopus Card in

the Hong Kong transit system.

Parker said mobile ticketing is the

future for transit because of the amount

of mobile devices being used by the

general population and the ease of use

it ofers to current and potential riders.

“It’s all about the ease of use,”

Parker said. “Tere’s no hassle, no

more needing exact change, no more

dealing with a clunky machine.”

Te addition of mobile ticketing also

keeps more money in the system than

paying to process payments. Parker said

a TriMet audit on the cost of collection

shows 28 percent of the cost of every

ticket went to processing cash pay-

ments, 12 percent for paper media and

down to 5 percent for mobile ticketing.

“It costs money in terms of the

software, the paper media to be load-

ed in, to refll the ink printers, the

armored trucks and the union con-

tracts,” he said. “If you look at cash,

it’s really a pain point for these agen-

cies because it’s very diferent and

very expensive to work with cash.

We provide a seamless change using

what’s already in people’s pockets.”

Although there’s plenty of upside to

mobile ticketing, Parker said changes

could be made to speed up the process

to implementing the new technology.

“I think the bigger challenge over-

all is the procurement environment

and the political atmosphere of trying

to get technology to move forward on

a relatively fast basis,” he said. “Agen-

cies and their RFP’s, a lot of what goes

into them is they’re compiled like go-

ing out to bid for heavy rail equipment

or big, heavy infrastructure where you

need to have bonding mechanisms or

some kind of securitization of multi-

millions for covering the liabilities

of big heavy infrastructure. Mobile

ticketing by its nature is extremely low

risk to implement, so much less in the

way of physical procurement, so the

way to go about this could be signif-

cantly reduced as compared to how

transit procurement is done today.”

Parker said agencies tend to be

risk adverse to brand new technol-

ogy because leaders are concerned

about being penalized for screwing

something up, so companies like

GlobeSherpa are working to change

their mindsets and show them this

is something they really need to be

paying attention to for their system.

“Tis isn’t a panacea. Not every ticket

machine or fare box is going to go away,”

he said. “But in the longer term it may

reduce the cost of ongoing challenges

with that equipment, like ticket ma-

chines won’t break down as much and

won’t need to be replaced as often.” MT

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“There’s no hassle, no more needing

exact change, no more dealing with

a clunky machine.”

- Nat Parker

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