An increasing number of cities, both in developing and developed countries, use automated systems to collect and verify fares for public transport. Automated fare collection (AFC) can be a tremendously helpful tool for local governments, transit operators, and commuters themselves and is far from being a gimmick.
AFC’s advancement is a critical enhancement of public transportation in terms of increased efficiency, affordability including accessibility for consumers. In addition to smartphones, credit and debit cards, smart cards, and QR codes, AFC frameworks can also be used to conduct transactions with multiple types of payment methods, allowing for shared transportation services such as bike-sharing, paratransit, and even carpooling.
Through The Eyes Of The Pedestrians And The Industry
AFC technology provides pedestrians with a simplified process to reach specifically aimed benefit schemes, such as targeted subsidies (lower-income consumers, the older population, pupils), differentiated fares depending on the time of day, weekday passes, opening fare gates for people with disabilities, restoring unused balances on lost transport cards, and even allowing users to charge their cards.
What Contribution Does AFC Make To The Railway Industry?
AFC systems provide the railway industry with more than just ticketing by generating anonymized data, fostering public-private partnership initiatives with the goal of improving customer satisfaction and service, integrating services, and making transactions more efficient. AFC/AVL data, for instance, is a popular tool for planners to determine underserved areas, shortcomings in coverage of ticket recharge networks (blackout areas) and potential fraudulent behaviours (fare evasion).
Creating a publicly owned standard, defining how transactions are processed, will enable the lead institution to develop a flexible ticketing system that aids the railway system as it can be easily extended across all modes within the city.
What Are The Benefits For The Railway Industry?
The Railway Industry benefits from AFC Systems both financially and commercially. In addition to cash, electronic payments are being increasingly used for fare collection every day. AFC systems are therefore dependent on sound financial and commercial management to be successful.
Public transportation operators and other stakeholders would be distributed efficiently, timely, and transparently. It would be clear whether individual AFC operators are required to pay certain fees.
Adopting a robust Automated Fare Collection System that is commonly accepted, would ensure both data security and safeguarding.
The emergence of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is mainly due to interoperable AFC systems that allow seamless integration between transport modes and payment mechanisms. O-City ensures that citizens are able to utilize a single account to benefit from a range of commuting services, such as public transportation, pooled financial services, feeder networks, among others. Modernizing fare collection and rethinking people’s transportation is increasing in cities.
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