New fareboxes to debut on Port Authority buses
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When Port Authority needed some phony $1 bills to test the reliability of its new fareboxes, it had a ready supply -- furnished by riders.
The current fareboxes not only can't distinguish between genuine and counterfeit money; they pretty much take anything that is shoved into them.
"You could stuff a sock in them and it would go through," authority spokesman Jim Ritchie said.
The new generation of fareboxes, which will start showing up on buses in the coming weeks, won't take socks OR bogus money. In fact, the boxes, like vending machines, will be a bit picky about what they swallow.
So the challenge for cash-paying riders will be to have greenbacks that are reasonably crisp and undamaged.
The new boxes will start appearing on bus routes operating out of the Ross garage in the next few weeks. They will be put on buses that use the East Liberty garage, including East Busway routes, starting in March, according to the plan.
Buses based in Collier, West Mifflin and Harmar will follow, with rail cars operating from South Hills Village getting them last, about six months from now.
The boxes are the first step in a $33 million overhaul of the authority's fare collection process.
It will culminate in adoption of a Smart Card system, in which riders will be able to pay using plastic cards with computer chips that have the fares automatically deducted from them. The new fareboxes have a "target" over which the Smart Card is passed; they also will continue to accept cash.
But not just any cash.
The new boxes have three criteria for evaluating the bills that are inserted -- they read a magnetic strip embedded in the currency, measure the bill's dimensions and scan various portions of its surface.
Questionable currency is either rejected or displayed on a small screen for the bus driver to examine.
In a demonstration last week, authority personnel fed the box some counterfeit bills that had turned up in cash collections from the old fareboxes. Each time, the new farebox rejected the bills.
The box seemed tolerant of bills that were a bit worn and wrinkled or had small folds at the corners.
When the authority started testing the boxes last summer, they were rejecting one of every five bills fed to them, causing some apprehension. After adjustments to make them more tolerant, the machines' rejection rate fell to 1.2 percent.
Mr. Ritchie acknowledged that the new system will take some getting used to. Drivers will use their judgment in situations where riders only have dollar bills that look like they've been through several machine washings.
"We're going to rely on them to make the best decisions in those situations," he said.
The new boxes won't take paper tickets -- riders using them will hand them to the driver, who is supposed to tear them in two. Tickets, cardboard passes and paper transfers will be eliminated when the Smart Card system is adopted.
Riders using Smart Cards will be able to add cash value to them at the farebox, at vending machines in stations or by using a credit or debit card from any computer.
First Published January 19, 2010 12:00 am
