Honolulu launches INIT's account-based electronic fare system pilot

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) and the City and County of Honolulu Department of Transportation Services (DTS) launched the HOLO Pilot, an account-based electronic fare system from INIT, on December 1, 2018.

The HOLO card will be used by passengers on the City’s TheBus system and in the near future, on the City’s rail transit system. The Honolulu Rail Transit Project is a 20-mile elevated rail line with 21 stations. The Pilot will run approximately three months and will be followed by a full roll out for TheBus. Roll out on rail is anticipated to start December 2020.

The fare collection system, designed and implemented by INIT, delivers real-time fare processing and account management for Oahu passengers, providing the ability for patrons to load passes or add value via their mobile device en route to board a bus, from the privacy of their own homes, or by visiting local retail outlets or their regional satellite city hall.

The HOLO project kicked off in 2016 with system design, leading to the 2018 outfitting of the Oahu Transit Services’ five-hundred and fifty vehicle bus fleet (TheBus) with INIT proximity card readers, driver displays, and routers to facilitate the validation of HOLO smart cards and electronic tickets.

The HOLO card will also be accepted as payment on the Honolulu rail system, currently scheduled to open its first stations in 2020. INIT is supplying more than one-hundred ticket vending machines and nearly one-hundred and forty fare gates for the rail system. The City is also evaluating the option to incorporate Biki, Honolulu’s new bikeshare system, with the HOLO card for an intermodal electronic fare system.

INIT’s open-architecture design enabled the delivery of several third-party system integrations to the HOLO system using open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Taking this approach allows the Agencies to link external partners to manage their devices and CAD/AVL information.