Commuters who hop from Metro buses and trains to suburban Maryland buses should keep their SmarTrip cards handy in the coming months.
Both Montgomery and Prince George’s counties are in the process of installing farebox hardware that will read Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s microchipped farecards. Similar technology, where riders touch SmarTrip cards to a panel to pay, has already been installed on Metrobuses.
Riders of the Ride On system in Montgomery will be able to use their cards to pay bus fares starting this fall, while bus passengers in Prince George’s will have to wait until spring for the switch. A spokeswoman from the Prince George’s County Department of Public Works and Transportation said funding has been the big issue for her county.
“We don’t have the same budget that Metro has,” Susan Hubbard said. “We just had to wait until the money was identified.”
In Montgomery, part of the delay in bringing buses online with the WMATA system has been developing a computer system that will allow distribution of paid fares to the appropriate region, a spokesman for the county’s Department of Public Works and Transportation saud.
“This is a major and very complex undertaking that understandably has taken time to create,” Thomas Pogue wrote in an e-mail.
Ultimately, the switch moves the Washington region’s transportation system closer to seamless travel, where riders boarding in Virginia, Washington or Maryland can pay using the same rechargeable farecard. The change also means hard currency, now the staple of bus fareboxes around the region, might become obsolete.
“We expect to handle less cash in the fare boxes,” Pogue wrote. “This will mean fewer jams and mechanical breakdowns.”
