Does your region have numerous public transportation providers? Do transit riders need different passes to ride on the buses, trains, and ferries of different transit providers? Are transit providers in your region looking to increase revenues and decrease costs? Do major employers in your community give commuters public transportation benefits (like Commuter Choice, employee transit passes, and/or parking cash out) or are they trying to create incentives for their employees to take transit rather than drive to work? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, your community may benefit from using smart card technology to implement a universal fare card that will be accepted by all the transit systems in your region. In the rest of this section, the experience of other regions that have implemented universal fare card systems is discussed in order to highlight some of the best practices and lessons learned by these early programs.

Positive public response. Perhaps the most authoritative test of the impact of universal fare cards is the overwhelmingly positive response they receive from the public. In those regions where universal fare card programs have already been introduced, they have been met with great enthusiasm and interest among transit customers. For instance, the Washington DC area is rapidly expanding its use of the SmarTrip card in response to customer demand and the get>>in card used in Hanau, Germany is adding more benefits to their card based on customer feedback.

Survey says. Participants in Phase I of the San Francisco Bay Area's TransLink fare card program could not be happier with their program, according to a study by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission  (MTC is the regional transportation agency in the Bay Area). Overall customer satisfaction rated a 9 out of a possible 10, with 76% giving the program the highest satisfaction rating possible. And 70% of polled Bay Area transit riders said they would be very likely to try TransLink. One rider was so enthused about the program that he believes "the inventor should get a medal." In fact, 97% of the participants in focus groups evaluating the initial test phase of the San Francisco Bay Area's TransLink card recommended Bay Area-wide deployment of the card as soon as possible. (Adapted from the MTC article "TransLink Smart Card Moves toward Regionwide Rollout").

Fare cards are flying off the shelves. The number of fare cards in circulation is also a strong indication of customers' response to a universal fare card program. With its SmarTrip Card  program starting in 1999, the Washington DC Metro had sold 250,000 cards within 3 years and now typically sells approximately 1,000 cards each week. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) anticipated a similarly enthusiastic customer response to the introduction of universal fare cards in Chicago in 2003: the CTA purchased 100,000 Chicago Cards in November 2002 with an option to buy 200,000 more. But as of this writing, less than a quarter (or fewer than 25,000) of the cards the CTA originally purchased are currently in use. However, the lackluster reception to universal fare cards in Chicago may be due to the location of the vending machines that riders must use to purchase and add value to their cards: most are located at train stations and are not easily accessible to bus-only riders (who comprise roughly two-thirds of all transit riders in the Chicago area). Within the next year the CTA plans to address this problem by installing vending machines in locations with better access for bus riders and also allowing people to recharge the card automatically (via deduction from a bank account or charge to a credit card) whenever the value falls below a certain pre-determined amount.

How universal is your universal fare card? Universal fare cards have very few critics, especially among transit customers. In fact, if all transit providers in a region use the same fare card, transit riders can only benefit (some of these user benefits are discussed in the Why use it? section of the 'Quick Start Guide'). The most common customer complaint about 'universal' fare card systems relates to their occasional lack of 'universality' during their initial phases (i.e., during the testing phases or at the very beginning of implementation, not all transit providers in the region may participate, meaning the cards only work on parts of the regional transit network). Indeed, the primary criticism of the Bay Area's TransLink card during the test phase was that it could not be used at all rail stations or bus lines. But once the fare card programs are fully implemented and coverage is more complete, such complaints will fade away.

Keeping your options open. There is a danger that in their haste to get fare card systems into place, regional transit authorities may get locked into long-term contracts with a single technology provider. This is because the smart card technology (that universal fare card systems are based on) is still in its adolescence, so there are no industry-wide standards requiring the hardware and software of different companies to be compatible with one another. As a result, many companies fare card software and hardware is proprietary (i.e., owned by that company alone), meaning that regional transit authorities can only go through one company for software upgrades and maintenance of card readers and vending machines. Regional transit authorities should keep their technology options open so that they can make improvements and expansions to their universal fare cards systems in the future (such as when they want to add other transit providers to the system or additional features to the fare cards). Transit authorities can maintain this flexibility in a number of ways: by retaining the rights to the software themselves, by requiring 'open source' software (i.e., software that any company can modify/improve at a later date), and/or by pushing for industry-wide standards for universal fare card systems.

Administrative and technical issues. From the perspective of transit providers, there are numerous administrative and technical issues that must be worked out between all the different agencies (such as how and when to get the money to the correct provider), but as the experiences of Washington DC, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area illustrate, these are not insurmountable problems. Of course, it is critical that a universal fare card program is designed so that transit providers can collect their fare revenue accurately. As was discovered during Ventura County's (CA) Smart Passport pilot project (the predecessor of the county's Go Ventura smart card program), while the automation of many accounting functions is possible with smart card technology, transit agencies must identify the right balance between the desire to use universal fare cards to automate administrative functions and the need to provide the greatest convenience to customers. (Jump to Toolkit Links in the 'Dig a Little Deeper' section for more information on the lessons learned from the Smart Passport pilot project).

Privacy issues. Universal fare cards provide benefits to both transit passengers and transit providers, but the smart card technology on which the cards are based is not without its critics. Some see this type of technology as a way for 'Big Brother' to squelch our freedom of movement and invade our privacy. For instance, with some universal fare cards, the potential exists for law enforcement agencies to find out someone's current or past location by looking at the travel data stored in the transit authorities' central database. However, the Fourth Amendment will protect fare card users' right to privacy (as it does now with phone calls and e-mail). In addition, transit agencies should be required to develop aggressive privacy and security policies to protect fare card users' privacy and the security of any data collected or stored on their fare cards. For more information about smart card privacy and security issues, visit the Smart Card Alliance.