Big Blue Bus Fare Collection System

[joshuanickel]

The city of Santa Monica (operators of Big Blue Bus) plans to approve a new fare collection system tonight at their council meeting for the big blue bus that would include the systems necessary to implement the TAP program. It would also add six ticket vending machines to add to the most popular bus stops:

www01.smgov.net/cityclerk/council/agendas/2012/20120612/2012%200612%203N.pdf

[James Fujita]

Here's a link to a story about this

I was worried that the new equipment would be incompatible with TAP, but it sounds like it will be. At the very least, Santa Monica seems to be considering the fact that it ought to be, since they can going with a more expensive system which will have better features.

Japanese smart cards can cross borders from Tokyo to Kansai, I see no reason why Santa Monica can't. Especially if they're going to spend the money to upgrade the technology.

[masonite]

Jun 12, 2012 14:55:31 GMT -8 James Fujita said:

Here's a link to a story about this

I was worried that the new equipment would be incompatible with TAP, but it sounds like it will be. At the very least, Santa Monica seems to be considering the fact that it ought to be, since they can going with a more expensive system which will have better features.

Japanese smart cards can cross borders from Tokyo to Kansai, I see no reason why Santa Monica can't. Especially if they're going to spend the money to upgrade the technology.

With Expo coming West, BBB is going to be much more integrated with Metrorail and will provide a lot of the north south connections in Phase II. They know they need to be on TAP by the time Phase II rolls around and hopefully much sooner or they will lose ridership.