CharlieCards Coming to a Commuter Train Near You

If you have a corporate monthly pass...

Commuter rail passengers rejoice! In addition to having restored 42 more scheduled trains to service, bringing them up to 82% of normally scheduled service, it looks like Keolis and the MBTA will soon be issuing CharlieCards to all customers who receive their monthly passes through the corporate program.

According to an advisory issued to corporate subscribers, customers will be given CharlieCards on a monthly basis, replacing paper CharlieTickets. These will be loaded with a LinkPass that can be used on buses and trains (presumably for all non-Interzone passes). By the sound of it, there will be an indicator of the card's validity and cards will only be visually examined by commuter rail conductors.

Update: MBTA Director of Communications Joe Pesaturo filled us in with some background on the program:

In January, the MBTA began a pilot program involving CharlieCards with a monthly pass printed on them.  These cards have been used as  ‘flash passes’ on board commuter rail trains, then they are used like any other CharlieCard (tapped for entry at fare boxes and fare gates).
 
With the March CharlieCards/Monthly passes, the end of the 3-month trial program is approaching.   Because feedback from customers in the pilot program has been very positive, interim MBTA General Manager Frank DePaola is extending the program.  GM DePaola says the CharlieCard/monthly passes are available to all participants in the Corporate Pass Program and customers who purchase monthly passes through the MBTA website.

Advisory for Commuter Rail Cards - April

Photo Credit: Masabi (Flickr)

One and a half steps forward

This isn't quite the full implementation of the CharlieCard system that was originally planned with the rollout of CharlieCard. Only 3 years ago, the MBTA unveiled plans to implement Masabi's smartphone ticketing platform; New York's MTA commuter railroads followed suit months later.

Apparently implementing mobile ticketing isn't a problem unique to Boston. Other agencies, including Chicago's Metra and CTA have struggled to harmonise fare payment systems, even after the recent introduction of the relatively forward-thinking Ventra payment system. Even New York City's deployment of an RFID smartcard system has taken decades.

Cubic, the company who now owns NextBus, the information broker for our bus tracking and prediction system, also happens to make the smartcard systems for the Bay Area, Minneapolis, and Seattle, all of whose commuter rail networks accept payment via smartcard.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Many of these investments have been hampered by the more threatening spectre of deepening backlogs of safety-critical repair projects, many of which continue to go un-addressed by the state leadership who hold the purse strings of regional transit agencies.

Biding our time may end up paying off in the end. As contactless payment systems have emerged, there's been concern about different technologies security vulnerabilities, universal compatibility, and overall cost of implementation. At this month's Mobile World Conference, Cubic and MasterCard announced a partnership. We're likely to see further partnerships as these technologies mature and standards emerge.

Plentiful, standardised technologies will make it cheaper to implement a new fare payment system (but will still cost millions to implement). This is the type of organisational and electronic change we should be expecting of the T as ask them to improve operational efficiency. To that end, we can't pursue this efficiency without investment—a very significant point we hope this winter has proven.

For now, we'll settle for a little extra convenience, even if it's really only a half-step in the right direction.

Lede photo: MBTA Press

A Muddled Call to Arms by the MBTA Rider Oversight Committee as MBTA is Forced to Consider Fare Increases

As the looming fare increase and service cut proposals gain more public awareness in the wake of yesterday's MBTA board meeting, Boston residents, and perhaps the Commonwealth itself, are forced to mull over what options are on the table to deal with the growing gap in the MBTA's operating budget.

Eric Moskowitz from the Globe lays out the situation accurately and succinctly:

If the T does nothing, it faces a projected $161 million deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1, as costs such as utilities, health insurance, and federally mandated paratransit service rise faster than MBTA revenue, the chief sources of which are fares (about $450 million a year) and a percentage of the state sales tax (worth nearly $800 million).

The T faced a similar situation last year but avoided a fare increase by implementing one-time measures such as selling future parking revenue to investors for a lump sum. The T has also tightened pension eligibility, streamlined labor costs (including switching from two operators to one operator on multiple subway lines), auctioned surplus property, and sold ads on everything from station walls to its website.

The T last raised fares Jan. 1, 2007.

Just in time to be a part of this discussion, the MBTA Rider Oversight Committe has released a plea to riders to speak to their representatives and advocate for better MBTA funding, which will hopefully run in tomorrow's Metro:

Riders, now is the time for us to stand up and speak out. The T’s red ink is much worse than you think. Next year, without increased funding, your bus or train could be the one that stops coming. Do we want the transit system we can afford or the transit system that we need? Rally round, and get engaged! Come join us at the public meetings and support the MBTA. Help us by calling your local and state representatives to insist they finally address the T’s funding gap. Fellow riders, it’s our T. It’s time for us to defend it.

In their letter, they speak to the better senses of the public, as does much of the press, trying to inform and arm the public with information to help advocate for a better solution, but many of the more radical options have been left out of the conversation, at least outside of twitter.

The last time New York City had to face these issues a few years ago, local politics included more vocal pushes for alternative funding vehicles to prevent a massive fare increase and service cuts. (They happened anyway because New York politics is a mess and has been one for a while.) Beyond typical ignorant ranting of government largess and inefficiencies, there were calls to start congestion pricing, tolling East River crossings, and even tax local businesses' payrolls (which has not gone over well).

Suffice it to say, all of these seem to be third rail topics that neither the press nor local advocates are willing to propose. While the ROC and others, including Secretary Davey himself, are pointing at the Commonwealth's legislature for relief, the fact remains that none of them are standing behind a unified message of what to ask for from the legislature in terms of bridging the funding gap, especially considering the Commonwealth is already trying to deal with a tight budget for every other state agency.

From my experience on twitter lately, it seems riders are more concerned with the platform experience more than the funding mechanisms behind the MBTA, more quick to bash it for inefficiency and waste than grant the agency a shadow of a doubt and look into reports about the funding situation. Advocates and members of the public in the know need to step up, do a better job to make the facts and options more accessible to riders, and stand behind a more cohesive message.

All I'm seeing is repeated messages of what we don't want and what we don't feel comfortable bringing up. I'll start by throwing my weight behind moderate fare increases, congestion pricing, parking reform (market pricing), and better long-term real estate deals on MBTA/state owned property. Perhaps we could get started on making public-private partnerships to assure funding, quality construction, and well-capitalised reconstruction of ageing stations and the Green Line extension, because simply selling naming rights of stations to corporations is really selling out the system.

Monthly MBTA Passes

[Photo: sivanagareddy/Flickr]

Monthly LinkPasses for January 2010 will soon be available for purchase

Our daily struggles with transit begin and end at the fare gate. Every day we tap, swipe, or insert our Cards and Tickets to enter the system. How we actually load that fare onto our Cards and Tickets is a completely different beast. The fifteenth day of December is fast approaching, which means that we'll be hearing that familiar Stephen Hawking-esque synthesized voice spouting disembodied messages about buying our monthly passes for January more frequently. That is, unless you ride with headphones, in which case you'll see these messages scroll on the in-station digital message boards however often you look at them.

In either case, monthly Bus and Link passes for the following month go on sale on the 15th of each month. You can buy them at a TVM (ticket vending machine) at your station of choice, one of many sales locations, at the new Downtown Crossing Customer Service Centre, or online at the MyCharlie Account Centre. I've blogged about the CharlieCard Web Programme before and my recommendation still stands: save yourself the hassle of having to remember or forgetting until the 1st of the month when the whole system falls to its knees and set up automatic monthly pass purchasing. You'll need to create an account, find your CharlieCard, and register it first.

So, be sure to set up a reminder for yourself if you don't already take advantage of automatic monthly pass purchasing and register your CharlieCard in the mean time. (Note the additional 'No Worries Protection' benefit for registering your CharlieCard.) Three days and counting.