Metro awards contract for new fare payment system

At today's Board hearing, the next steps in the next generation fare payment system were outlined. In short, the pilot program will begin in Jan. 2015 and run until June. Metro's presentation (pg 12) lists the stations where the pilot program will install one test faregate. http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/board_ ... 4ANEPP.PDF

Per a press release issued today, Metro announced "a pilot program to test new fare technology and fare gates to allow riders to pay for their trip in new ways, including next-generation smartphones, NFC-enabled watches, contactless credit and debit cards, Federal ID cards and more." http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/news/P ... aseID=5778

Included in the pilot program are Metrorail stations: Shady Grove, Eisenhower Avenue, Bethesda, Pentagon City, Pentagon, Ballston, Gallery Place (7th & F), Farragut West, Navy Yard and Suitland. In addition, parking facilities at Shady Grove and Suitland will be included in the pilot.

In order to launch the pilot, "nstallation of new fare gates, bus and parking payment targets for the pilot will begin in October. Metro will begin recruiting customers to participate in the pilot within a matter of weeks."

"If the pilot is successful, Metro plans to replace the now decades-old fare gates and vending machines at station entrances across the system, and add new payment targets onboard buses and at parking facilities, starting in 2017."

Since Metro's system requires a customer to tap in AND out, I imagine that those who participate in the pilot will have to be riders who enter and exit from those stations. Thus although I enter at Eisenhower Ave in the morning, I don't exit at any of those stations so I am not eligible....Plus I use Smartrip and don't have anything setup at the moment to use contactless credit cards, etc.

WP had a story today on Metro's testing program for the new fare payment system. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr- ... llections/. Some key takeaways - Metro is looking for 3000 or so applications and then it will select about 2000 testers; Metro will also be removing 1 faregate from each of the 10 selected Metro stations and installing one of the new faregates.

Lastly, a big takeaway for me was that the new system, will continuing to use SmarTrip cards, will require SmarTrip cards with NFC chips in them...thus all existing Metrorail cards would be obsolete. Did I read that correctly? Metro previously had said that SmarTrip cards would still be an option to pay fares,so you won't have to use a debit or credit card or a phone. I took that to mean you could continue to use your existing SmarTrip card. The story seems to imply that we'll all need next generation/version 2.0 NFC-enabled SmarTrip cards and our existing ones will not be compatible.

People can now apply to enroll in the new fare payment system pilot project: http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/news/P ... aseID=5793

Speaking of paying fares, I'm amazed at the increase in the cost of a one-day pass compared to only 4 years ago. When I last rode WMATA in 2010, the cost was $8.30. I see on WMATA's website that today the cost is now a whopping $14.50 !!!????!! Was this increase incremental over the last 4 years or was there recently a large fare increase at some point. I'm really surprised.

Head-end View wrote:Speaking of paying fares, I'm amazed at the increase in the cost of a one-day pass compared to only 4 years ago. When I last rode WMATA in 2010, the cost was $8.30. I see on WMATA's website that today the cost is now a whopping $14.50 !!!????!! Was this increase incremental over the last 4 years or was there recently a large fare increase at some point. I'm really surprised.

I think it's gone up an average of $2.50 per rate increase, and there have been two of them since 2010...That still seems a good deal to me, since a single trip at rush hour can cost upwards of $6.00.

New faregate delivered to Eisenhower station for the pilot program. Photo to follow.

JDC wrote:

Head-end View wrote:Speaking of paying fares, I'm amazed at the increase in the cost of a one-day pass compared to only 4 years ago. When I last rode WMATA in 2010, the cost was $8.30. I see on WMATA's website that today the cost is now a whopping $14.50 !!!????!! Was this increase incremental over the last 4 years or was there recently a large fare increase at some point. I'm really surprised.

I think it's gone up an average of $2.50 per rate increase, and there have been two of them since 2010...That still seems a good deal to me, since a single trip at rush hour can cost upwards of $6.00.

The last time I brought a day pass, it was in 2012 while I was on an 6 hour layover at Union Station between the Silver Meteor, & the Capital Limited, & brought me a day pass for metrorail $9.50, but the only restriction on it it that I could not use it until after 9:30am, since the Silver Meteor from South Carolina arrived around 7:20am(on the day I rode it, it came in around 7:00am) I had to put money on an card to get on metro until after 9:30am, in which I could use the day pass.The $14.00 day pass now with no time restrictions during the week still is a good deal.

Hope this new payment system will go well, & will SmarTrip cards can still be used when the new fare system(If it goes system wide) be used.

JamesT4 wrote: Hope this new payment system will go well, & will SmarTrip cards can still be used when the new fare system(If it goes system wide) be used.

Yes, SmarTrip cards will continue to be an option for those who do not want (or cannot) use credit/debit cards (NFC-enabled) or smart phones (also requiring NFC). I think I posted earlier about this exact issue, and the question whether riders will need new/next generation SmarTrip cards.

noticed these things have 30A circuits ... do they really use that much power? looks like simple machines...

"YOLO"
noticed these things have 30A circuits ... do they really use that much power? looks like simple machines...

30 amps on a 110 volt AC circuit or 30 amps from a lower voltage DC circuit?

A new faregate has been installed and is working at Gallery Place. DCist has the story and a video: http://dcist.com/2014/11/video_fare_gat ... _phone.php

Not so sure I love the 'beep', but I do like the larger screen indicating a successful transaction. It doesn't list your balance, though, which I find useful. Adam Tuss' tweet says the gates are made by Samsung, which is something I don't recall from prior Metro PR.

I haven't taken a picture, but the test faregate at Eisenhower is now turned on (lights inside the gate and the fare screen are on). A Dec. 4th presentation to the Metro Board on the new fare payment test is here: http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/board_ ... 141204.pdf

I made a surprising discovery today. I was holding my newer Metro card in my hand (the "Silver" one I got when the Silver line opened), and I placed my phone on top of it in order to fiddle with something else on the phone. And the phone offered to launch an app that I have installed to read NFC tags from the card.

When I got home, I got out an older farecard (the greenish one), and there was no such response from the phone. Hold the silver card back behind the phone, and I get the NFC prompt again. Infinitely repeatable.

The tag info that I got from the Silver card had this information (in part):

RF Technology: Type A (ISO/NEC 14443 Type A)
Tag Type: 14443-4 Smart Card
Manufacturer: NXP Semiconductors (Germany)

If you have a newer Android phone, you can probably do the same thing (if you have iPhone, you are out of luck - iPhone only allows Apple Pay to use NFC). First of all, you need to install an app like "NFC Taginfo" from the Android store. You need to turn on NFC on the phone (the icon is sort of a lit-up square with an N in the middle). If you have used Google Wallet to purchase anything, you probably know what it is and might already have it turned on. Once you have done this, then unlock the phone and hold the Metro card next to the NFC antenna on the phone (on the Galaxy S5, the antenna is in the back of the phone on the lower half of the phone).