Transit Agencies Face System Update Challenges with Fare Payment Innovations, Study Says

The Masabi bi-annual research report The State of Fare Collection shows that 92% of agencies plan to adopt fare payment innovations to bring riders back on board, according to the company's press release.  

However, most respondents are still operating bespoke systems that are hard to update, with 43% of agencies reporting that they found it ‘hard’ or ‘very hard’ to deploy new ticketing features and functions.

More than half of agencies aim to launch mobile ticketing and just under half intend to introduce contactless EMV (cEMV) payments using contactless bank cards and mobile phones, according to the report.

Meanwhile, 42% of agencies and authorities say they will adopt a Fare-Payments-as-a-Service (FPaaS) approach for their next Automated Fare Collection (AFC) system, with just 17% planning on sticking with bespoke systems.

One third of agencies surveyed thought they had secured a good deal from their AFC supplier, and only 15% would recommend their supplier to another agency. However, the results varied considerably for agencies operating a Fare-Payments-as-a-Service (FPaaS) approach with 67% of agencies believing they had both a good deal and would recommend their supplier. 

FPaaS enables agencies to deliver the latest innovations to riders extremely quickly and to add capabilities as they are released onto the platform.

“This pace of change of industry thinking since our last survey in 2019 has been impressive with the vast majority of agencies recognising the need for fare payment innovation and this shift has only been accelerated by the need to bring riders back on board following the pandemic,” said Brian Zanghi, CEO of Masabi. “It’s also noticeable that in parallel the industry is looking to FPaaS as the answer to delivering these innovations. In 2019 we talked about the need for a Fare Payments revolution, and the indications from this survey are that this is now well underway.”

The report is based on a survey of 59 transit agencies from across the world, but it is predominantly based in North America. Masabi issued the survey in the late summer of 2021 to professionals working for transit agencies and operators, with a particular focus on fare collection teams.