When the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority resumes fare collection Aug. 1, riders using app-based fare payment won’t have to show their smartphones to the driver any more — they’ll show them to a reader instead.
TARTA’s board of trustees authorized Thursday a purchase order for up to $400,000 to buy EZFare validators from Masabi, Ltd. of New York to equip the agency’s fixed-line buses and paratransit fleet.
The devices will also be capable of reading fare cards and support the eventual introduction of “capped” fares that will help the most transit-dependent of Toledo’s population control their fare expenses, Laura Koprowski, TARTA’s chief executive officer, told the board.
The transit authority suspended fare collection at the coronavirus pandemic’s onset as a precaution against drivers or passengers infecting each other. Extended several times since then, that suspension is currently scheduled to expire July 31 and TARTA does not currently plan to extend it again.
Before the suspension began, Ms. Koprowski said, TARTA fare payment was about equally divided between cash fare payments, use of multi-ride tickets or weekly or monthly passes, and EZFare.
But while a $60 monthly pass might have been the best deal for frequent riders, “for the majority of our customers it might be difficult to pay that up front,” Ms. Koprowski said. Electronic fare payment, using either fare cards or a smartphone app, will allow TARTA to collect fares from a specific account up to a weekly or monthly maximum, after which that account holder would ride for free for the rest of the specific time period as if holding a pass paid for up front.
Ms. Koprowski said it will probably be six to nine months before such “fare capping” is in place, but it’s already in use on other transit systems.
Also, she said, electronic fare validation “eliminates any related conflicts between rider and driver that arose with visual validation.”
The $400,000 outlay is part of a $12,272,000 capital budget the TARTA trustees approved Thursday that also includes $4.2 million for an upgraded computer-assisted dispatching and vehicle-location system; $2.2 million for new fareboxes, and $1.2 million for work on the main bus garage on Central Avenue.
“There is not a single item on that list that is not critical at this time,” said Sophie Giviyan, TARTA’s chief financial officer, and most of it is covered by federal capital grants. TARTA’s local share is $1,891,591.
Part of the capital budget is $624,000 for a replacement heavy-duty tow truck.
The transit authority will receive 39 new transit and paratransit vehicles this year — samples of which were displayed Thursday outside the Toledo Area Regional Paratransit Service headquarters where the trustees meet. But its older vehicles will remain vulnerable to breakdowns during routes, and TARTA needs to be able to respond quickly to get them off the street when that happens, agency administrators said.
“Buying our own is the most prudent thing to do” because heavy-tow companies sometimes take four to six hours to respond to a call, and during that entire time a TARTA driver would have to stay with the vehicle, Charles Odimgbe, the chief operating officer, told the board.
The TARTA board authorized Ms. Koprowski to issue a purchase order for a tow truck up to the budgeted amount, although the resolution did not specify a vendor or model. Administrators said they are still shopping, and could opt for a used tow truck if they can find a suitable one.
John Jones, the transit authority’s maintenance director, said afterward he believes he can find a new tow truck for under $500,000, “and if it lasts as long as the old one did, that’s 32 years.” But the current TARTA tow truck is now so weary that it no longer tows — it can only push.
The new vehicles, which were ordered through last year’s capital budget, include 12 transit buses for fixed-route service, five smaller buses for Call-a-Ride routes, and 19 paratransit vehicles that include both small buses and vans. The vans, one of which was included in the display Thursday, are a new feature in the TARPS fleet.
First Published April 21, 2022, 11:16 p.m.
