The Fox Cities Transit Commission met 11/12/2024. The one action item on their agenda was to vote on a request to approve the installation of the WisGo Fare Collection System on its buses.
Valley Transit’s old fare collection system is obsolete and needs to be replaced. This new system would cost $153,305 in the first year which would cover the cost of equipment and system-setup and also include a $32,585 annual system fee for software maintenance and transaction fees. Valley Transit would like to add a 10% contingency fee for unknown/unexpected costs which will bring the total first year cost to $168,636. 80% of this would be covered by federal grant dollars and the remaining 20% would be covered by Valley Transit’s existing budget. Future annual operating costs would be paid for by 60% State and Federal grants and by 40% local municipalities.
The commission voted to approve the request.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Transit Operations Specialist David Vickman explained that the existing fare collection system was 15 years old and is being discontinued by the vendor. Milwaukee County recently launched a new fare collection system called WisGo which had been designed specifically to serve as a regional system for collecting fares. It is currently used in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Beloit, and Oshkosh. Appleton would be the sixth area to start utilizing it.
The new system will allow Valley Transit to maintain the revenue agreements it has with Appleton Area School District, Fox Valley Technical College, and Lawrence University, and they should be easily able to configure the accounts of those students so that they can ride for free as they currently do.
Riders will be able to use either smart cards or an app on their phone to pay their fares. One of the benefits of the app is that it will automatically apply fare-capping to accounts and riders will not have to purchase day passes or monthly passes in order to enjoy the cost benefits of those. If a person did not purchase a day pass but the number of trips they take in a day exceeds the cost of a day pass, their fare for the day will be automatically capped at the amount of a day pass. Likewise, if they don’t purchase a monthly pass but the number of trips they take in a month exceeds the cost of a monthly pass, their fare will be capped at the cost of a monthly pass. This will be particularly beneficial to low income riders who utilize the transit system regularly but may not have enough money at the beginning of the month to purchase a monthly pass up-front.
Riders can add money to their accounts by connecting it to a bank account or other form of credit. Additionally, there is an option for riders to go to a network of retail stores that includes CVS and Walgreens and add value to their cards with cash. Eventually, Valley Transit plans to install a Ticket Vending Machine at the transit center at which people could add value to their cards with cash. That, however, was not going to happen until after the new transit center was built.
Additionally, the system developer was rolling out an open loop payment option which would allow people to pay on the bus with credit cards or Apple Pay without having to download the app or purchase a bus pass.
There was a lot of talk about how the app and cards worked in terms of households with multiple users. Basically, it sounded like there was no way to pay for multiple riders with one card or one account. Each rider needed to have their own account, which meant that each rider would need their own phone with the app installed connected to their own account or each rider would need their own card. There was not a way to pay for multiple people with one card. This was a safety feature so that if a card was stolen it could not be used to pay for multiple people in a very short period of time, but the drawback was a rider could not use their card or their app to pay for a friend or a family member if they were both out riding at the same time.
The new system was expected to be phased in and not abruptly changed overnight, and the existing farebox system would operate in parallel with the new system for a yet to be determined period of time. Additionally, they wanted to try to do some demonstrations for riders so they could learn about the new system.
The commission voted unanimously to approve the request to implement this new fare collection system.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1195131&GUID=38E8B8B6-FE08-41BF-A87E-BFFD9408E3DA
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