It’s an upgrade that Belleville Transit riders will appreciate.
At Monday’s meeting, City Council approved upgrades to the current fare boxes on city buses at a cost of just over one million dollars.
Transit Services Manager Brad Strauss says the existing fare boxes only collect coins and while bus passes are electronic, drivers still have to look at people’s phones to validate them.
“What the new system will allow us to do is to use smart cards, tap card system. It’ll allow us to use the QR codes on the riders’ passes now so they can scan those onto a reader and we’ll still be able to take cash.”
It’s hoped the boxes will also be able to accept debit and credit cards in the near future.
Strauss call it the best addition they’ve made to the fleet in years.
“It’s a delay. You get, especially when we get with school boardings, and we get sometimes 50, 60, 70 people boarding a bus at one time. The main goal is to get them on as efficiently as possible. And, this way, it’ll speed it up. You just go by, tap, on and done.”
It will take a few months to upgrade all the boxes.
Garival SEC, a Quebec company installed the current boxes and will be responsible for the upgrades.
