Update On Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council

First year Council participation exceeded expectations, including ten top tier U.S. transit agencies. In addition to transit agencies, the Council's 43 members represent a cross-section of the industry, including chip and card suppliers, transportation system suppliers, systems integrators and financial services providers. New members joining the Alliance and participating in the Transportation Council include ACS, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, METRO -- Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Bridges and Tunnels, MTA New York City Transit, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Parcxmart, PBS&J, PepperCoin, Scheidt & Bachmann, TransitCenter, Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) and the Utah Transit Authority.

"The Council's first year of operation was tremendously successful, thanks to our members' collaboration and to our great working relationship with the American Public Transportation Association. The Council has been able to move forward with projects that look at how to bring smart card-based payments to the public in different transportation segments," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Alliance.

The Council's first major accomplishment was publishing the white paper, Smart Cards and Parking, available at www.smartcardalliance.org. The white paper attracted broad Council member participation and includes extensive industry information on the use of smart cards in both parking and transit.

"The high level of participation in the Council and the excitement around its projects this year really illustrate that the transportation industry is serious about accelerating the use smart cards for payments across the many modes of transportation and transportation-related services. It was great to be able to work as chair to lay the groundwork for this Council and to help further the progress of this technology in this market," said Greg Garback, executive officer, department of finance, Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA) and the exiting co-chair of the Council.

The Council elected new officers and steering committee representatives in February. New Transportation Council officers are:

• Chair: Paul Korczak, MTA New York City Transit
• Vice Chair, Transit: Chris Cipperly, WMATA
• Vice Chair, Parking: David deKozan, Cubic Transportation Systems

"This is an important time for the transportation industry, as business cases for expanded use of contactless smart cards in both transit and in banking are emerging. In large part, the impetus comes from a market-driven business interest to address micropayments," said Paul Korczak, assistant chief officer, MetroCard Sales Operations, MTA New York City Transit and incoming chair. "As such, this year will be an important time for the Transportation Council to work on projects that look at how, in the context of emerging business cases, a broad interest in open, interoperable system solutions can be joined with advances in contactless smart card technology to improve customer service and the cost effectiveness of transit fare payment."

Council priorities for 2006 include:

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• Exploring linkages between transit payment and new contactless financial payment approaches.
• Collaborating with the APTA Universal Transit Farecard Standards Taskforce to examine the need for a security specification for the UTFS standard for transportation electronic payment systems.
• Expanding on parking activities of the past year to engage with organizations deploying parking payment solutions and to discuss linkages between existing transit payment approaches and parking payment systems.
• Developing a white paper describing multi-use vs. multi-application cards for transit payment.

The Transportation Council is open to participation from any organization that joins the Alliance and the Council. For more information, please visit www.smartcardalliance.org.