Metro is one step closer to letting riders access their own transit riding history online, easing the way for expense reports and tax filings around the region.
The transit agency has modified its privacy guidelines for plastic farecards, a key hurdle in making the SmarTrip cards smarter, so that registered users who can prove their identities to the agency will be able to review their trips and accounts online.
For riders, it means an easier way of accessing a log of past trips and how much money they have spent on transit. For Metro, the agency says, the change means saving an estimated $6,000 a year in staff time spent responding to requests for paper records.
It’s not entirely clear when those changes will be coming, though. Metro officials originally said the upgrade should begin by July, but last week Deputy General Manager for Finance and Administration Carol Dillon Kissal amended the timetable to a vaguer promise of sometime this calendar year.
Metro has several projects ongoing at the same time to upgrade the SmarTrip system, she said, including major changes proposed to fares in next year’s budget that starts July 1. The agency is considering fare increases for rail, bus and MetroAccess, plus higher parking fees and also a new 10-cent “peak-of-the-peak” surcharge on any train trip taken during the busiest 90 minutes of each weekday morning and evening commute. Those changes require special programming.
Metro has also promised to let users eventually add money to their accounts online and reload prepaid SmartBenefits automatically at the farebox, rather than having to stop at the fare dispensing machines. Those changes, long sought yet delayed several times, are also supposed to occur in 2010. Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein declined to say if those are on track, saying the agency plans to provide an update on those plans next month.
Metro has also promised to let users eventually add money to their accounts online and reload prepaid SmartBenefits automatically at the farebox, rather than having to stop at the fare dispensing machines. Those changes, long sought yet delayed several times, are also supposed to occur in 2010. Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein declined to say if those are on track, saying the agency plans to provide an update on those plans next month.
The changes come as Metro is trying to encourage more riders to use the plastic farecards instead of paying cash on buses or using fickle paper farecards for trains. In the current budget proposal, the agency is considering charging 10 cents more for bus riders who pay cash and 25 cents per ride for those using paper farecards.
Because the plastic farecards currently cost $5 each — before fares are added — the new charges would effectively burden the region’s many visitors, who are unlikely to shell out for the plastic card.
Eventually all these changes may become moot, though, as the agency would like to phase out the SmarTrip cards and let users pay with bank cards directly through the farebox. But that too appears to be on the back burner, as the latest capital budget proposal calls for delaying those more than $15 million plans.
