Passenger Bus, Rail and Motorcoach Industry News

Fare will not be raised by 15 cents on July 1, as initially planned. Staff is also exploring potential changes, including lowering the basic adult fare to $2, eliminating transfers and moving to a pay-per-boarding system and introducing a day pass, to increase ridership and revenue.

Seventeen local nonprofits and community-based organizations received funding to help low-income members of the community within the agency’s service district. TriMet partnered with local nonprofit, Ride Connection, to administer the program.

Calls for fares and service levels to remain steady for 2013 and for Pace to add new service in some areas during the year.

Makes it easier and cheaper to transfer from buses to trains. The new money-saving midday pass is designed to encourage ridership during the parts of the day when DART has additional capacity.

Currently, paratransit passengers have to pay a full fare on MARTA and suburban systems when transferring between carriers, but regular passengers do not.

Gwinnett Paratransit passengers wanting to transfer to MARTA end up paying double fares. Officials plan to make the free transfers more consistent when area transportation groups get together to establish a regional fare policy.

Google’s new free app allows riders to use their smart phones to make “tap and pay” transactions to pay their fares.

Implementing cheaper fares for Coaster trains and Breeze buses and extending Sprinter light rail service hours with late-night trains on weekends. Agency is trying to boost ridership by 5 percent over a span of 18 months.

During FY 2008 (Oct. 2007-Sept. 2008), Amtrak carried more than 28.7 million passengers, representing the sixth straight fiscal year of record ridership when comparing the same routes.

Supports transit system's goal of recovering 52 percent of annual operational costs by 2017.