TransLink: Turnstiles and Smart Cards will soon be a reality
Posted May 28, 2010 3:47 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Translink has shortlisted three companies to run its new Smartcard system. Ken Hardie with the company says they may look at getting rid of the zone system we have now.
Hardie says they’re going to leave the current fare system in place when they launch the Smartcard system and gather information from it before they decide how best to calculate fares. “People are going to tag on the system as soon as they enter a bus, and we’ll probably be looking at a system where they tag off at the end of their journey. So we’ll know where people are getting on, getting off, how long the journey is, how long it’s taking them. All of those data points will go into the mix.”
He adds it’s speculative to assume someone living farther outside Metro Vancouver will pay more for a transit ride, since it may be worth offering a bargain price for longer trips and getting more cars off the roads.
