The day might not be far off when St. Albert Transit riders can pay their fares with their debit cards, credit cards or even their smartphones.
City council on Tuesday night endorsed a proposal for a smart fare system as part of the 2014 budget.
The cost is dependent on regional co-operation and receiving GreenTRIP grant funding from the province. The cost of the system would be shared by St. Albert, Edmonton and Strathcona County. St. Albert’s share is estimated at $1.8 million, but the province would cover two-thirds of that cost with a successful GreenTRIP application, leaving St. Albert on the hook for $600,000 to install the necessary equipment at stations and on buses.
“I don’t think anyone is suggesting we want to stick with what we’ve got,” said Bob McDonald, director of St. Albert Transit. “It’s so outdated and we need to advance on this and I think we’ll be doing some evaluations as we go along.”
St. Albert’s move was precipitated by Edmonton city council’s decision last October to start putting together a business case for an open payment, smart fare system. An open payment system allows riders to pay from their debit cards, credit cards or even their smartphones, as opposed to a smart card system, which issues specific transit cards to riders with a pre-paid value. The fare is deducted from that value with each ride.
“It hasn’t been decided for certain because we don’t a have a (request for proposal) right now, but the City of Edmonton is leaning towards the open-payment, smart fare system,” McDonald said.
St. Albert uses cash, tickets and passes presently for fares. Besides being less convenient, the current system gathers little information about riders, valuable data that can be used to more accurately co-ordinate service, McDonald said.
“Compared to other transit properties, we’ve been living with a pretty basic system for a long time,” McDonald said. “We’ve all kind of dreamed about advancing.”
Working on the smart fare system should also help drive the regional fare strategy. That work involves agreeing upon a smaller number of fares for transit use within the region compared to the more than 100 different fares now in use.
“No question about that,” said Mayor Nolan Crouse, also chair of the Capital Region Board, a committee of which is working on the fare strategy. “It certainly brings fairness as well. But it’s going to take years.”
If St. Albert city council adopts the proposed business case in the 2014 budget, Edmonton, St. Albert and Strathcona County would apply for GreenTRIP funding and develop a request for proposal. Implementation would take place in 2015.
