T3 Webinar Overview

Putting the Pieces in Place: Seamless Regional Fare Payment Puts the “Super” in Southern California's “Super Region”

Date:   April 26, 2012
Time:  1:00 PM – 2:30 PM ET
Cost:  All T3 webinars are free of charge
PDH:  1.5   View PDH Policy

T3 Webinars are brought to you by the ITS Professional Capacity Building Program (ITS PCB) at the U.S. Department of Transportation's (US DOT) ITS Joint Program Office, Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA). Reference in this webinar to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the public, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by U.S. Department of Transportation.

Background

The trend toward open architecture payment systems for fare collection in the United States is clear. In 2011, the Talking Technology and Transportation Webinar Program hosted three webinars examining open architecture payment systems. The webinar series content encompassed open architecture systems and how they can leverage multiple fare payment options, the use of open financial payment applications, mobile payment applications, credentials for fare payment, and transit operators' views of these trends and the strategic issues they impact.

Starting last year and continuing through the first quarter of this year, the Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink) and the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) are exploring how open architecture payment systems and, specifically, open financial payment applications could potentially achieve seamless regional fare payment in the Southern California Super Region, from Santa Barbara to San Diego. This exploration includes targeted vendor fairs at Metrolink in 2011 and at OCTA in 2012, as well as a peer-to-peer networking session in the summer of 2011 that brought together subject matter experts from the Utah Transit Authority and Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority to discuss their experiences with over 20 transit operators in the super region. The peer-to-peer (P2P) review was sponsored by the US DOT under the Intelligent Transportation Systems Professional Capacity Building. In the summer of 2011, OCTA led the formalization of the SuperUser Regional Stakeholders group during a meeting facilitated by the John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center.

Webinar presenters are Joe Vicente, Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA); Jorge Duran, Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA); and Dave Bostwick, Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink).

The webinar will be hosted by Tim Weisenberger of the US DOT John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center.

Target Audience

This T3 webinar will focus on the efforts of the SuperUser Regional Stakeholders to examine next generation payment systems. Specific discussions will entail a history of the efforts to examine regional seamless travel, the Super Regional Stakeholder Scope and key strategic issues, a specific dialogue of Metrolink's issues in the region, and a discussion of OCTA's goals for their next generation payment system.

Learning Objectives

At the end of the webinar, participants will be able to:

• Enhance participant's knowledge of efforts underway to achieve regional seamless fare payment.
• Highlight strategic issues in the Super Region.
• Discuss innovative approaches that can meet the needs of various transit providers—from municipal transit operators to Tier I Urban Transit Authorities, to commuter and inter-city proof of payment rail environments.
• Inform webinar participants of future activities of the Super Regional program.
• Inform webinar participants of the US DOT P2P program opportunities.

Host

Tim Weisenberger, US DOT John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

Tim is a project manager and analyst for the John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts since 2001. His expertise is on contactless technologies and their applications. He has worked with various North American transit agencies, United States government entities, and State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) on projects that examine feasibility as well as application of contactless technologies in transportation.

Tim is the rapporteur for the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee 204 Working Group 8 focused on development of Intelligent Transportation Systems Standards in Public Transport and Emergency Services. He was a facilitator for the American Public Transportation Association Universal Transit Farecard Standards Task Force since its inception in 2002 to the publication of the Contactless Fare Media System Standard in 2007. He was instrumental in developing the organization, mission, and objectives for the program and was a key to the development of the Contactless Fare Media System Standard.

Prior to joining the John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Tim was a business development manager at Motorola, Inc. Worldwide Smartcard Solutions Division. Tim has 20 years of professional experience, including roles as special projects manager at Chicago Transit Authority and as an officer in the United States Navy, where he served in the Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Presenters

Joe Vicente, Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA)

Joe Vicente has 36 years of experience implementing, supporting, and operating information technology systems used in bus operations in the areas of radio and Cad/AVL systems, scheduling, time keeping, vehicle maintenance, real-time passenger information, on-board video cameras, customer information, data management, and lately, in fare collection. He has a degree in mechanical engineering, a certificate in executive management, and a certificate in a transportation leadership and management program.

Jorge Duran, Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA)

Jorge Duran currently holds the position of project manager with the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA). OCTA is the transportation agency for Orange County, California, located just south of Los Angeles County and north of San Diego County. Jorge has over 20 years of transit experience. His work with the OCTA has included transit planning, scheduling, budgeting, operations analysis, and project management. In his current position as project manager, he is responsible for managing various projects in the Transit Division of OCTA, with his most current project being the fare collection system upgrade. He holds a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in Business Administration.

David Bostwick, Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink)

Dave Bostwick is the manager for the Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink) commuter rail providing service to six Southern California Counties. Dave has served in this capacity for over 12 years. He has overseen the expansion of the Metrolink system from 52 to 55 Metrolink stations and the expansion of the Ticket Vending Machine (TVM) service to 11 Amtrak stations ranging from San Diego to San Luis Obispo, California. In addition, Dave has been the project manager for a major Metrolink TVM upgrade process that included retrofitting existing “slave printer” TVMs to include independently “smart” functionality. This process also included a network upgrade from dial-up service to “frame relay” and later “MPLS.” The final element of the upgrade included conversion of the fare structure from zone-based to mileage-based.

In 2011, Dave joined with the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) to commence a series of Super User meetings. These meetings invited transportation providers from throughout the six counties served by Metrolink, as well as Santa Barbara County, to meet and discuss current and future fare structure, existing and future fare collection equipment plans, and fare policy issues. The ultimate goal of these meetings was to determine if an overarching technology exists or will soon exist that could provide seamless fares and transfers between all transportation agencies without requiring wholesale changes to existing equipment or fare policies.

Prior to joining Metrolink, Dave served 10 years as supervisor and, ultimately, pass sales manager for the Los Angeles County Rapid Transit District, now known as LA Metro. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Political Science with a minor in Urban Studies from California State University, Northridge.