In November 2023, the UITP Urban Mobility Open Payments Forum provided the training ‘Ticketing and Fare Management for North America’ held at the Regional Training Center of New Jersey Transit. The training aimed to support the PTO in enhancing the operational efficiency and help them adapt to new challenges in fare management and ticketing.
Kindly supported by Forum partners Anne Dowling (Cubic), Manfred Troll (Scheidt & Bachmann) and Josh Martiesian (Visa), the training sought to guide NJ Transit through their next steps in rolling out open-loop payment in their public transport system.
Reviewing the essentials
The training included some ticketing experts but was attended by staff from a wide variety of departments. This emphasised the importance of having a common vision about the implementation of open-loop projects that takes into account multiple perspectives and concerns.
Concretely, the training focused on:
- Exploring the basics
- Reviewing the current customer population to see where open-loop might add value for NJ transit
- Reviewing the current ticket product portfolio to where to add open-loop to not inflate the current system
NJ participants were very happy about the opportunity to take a step back and together with other colleagues review and discuss the possibilities at hand to advance the public transport network. According to the participants, this joint vision is essential before the actual roll-out of any technology, including open-loop payment.
Implementation Roadmap
Recognising the importance of having a joint vision when it comes to (open-loop) payment and ticketing, the Urban Mobility Open Payments Forum will early 2024 publish the first version of its Implementation Roadmap, focussed on the strategic vision and concept outline. Stay tuned!
