It appears the MBTA’s new General Manager, Phil Eng, continues to be getting his ft beneath him in his considerably unenviable position because the individual liable for fixing the state’s perennially problematic mass transit system.
The former president of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Long Island Rail Road, who started his job as chief of the state’s beleaguered transportation community in March, was unable to clarify why the MBTA hasn’t applied a tap-and-go fare system utilized by many trendy transportation businesses, regardless of an already present however severely over price five-year-old contract to do exactly that.
As initially deliberate, the brand new expertise was meant to go reside in 2021, however in February the MBTA introduced they didn’t count on to completely implement the almost $1 billion automated fare assortment system till 2024
The improve, contracted out in 2018 to Boston AFC 2.0 OpCo LLC, a subsidiary of Cubic Transportation Systems, would change the CharlieCard system put in in 2006 with a contactless fee equipment permitting riders to faucet or board at any door with a fare card, smartphone or bank card. It would, in idea, pace boarding and minimize down on fare evasion.
Eng, talking with WBZ political analyst Jon Keller, mentioned that he was nonetheless being briefed over the “challenges that are on-going” resulting in the brand new system’s significantly overdue implementation and a whole lot of tens of millions in price overruns.
“We are having meetings with Cubic to further progress that project,” he mentioned. “That is something that I’m diving into. I understand how important it is to have a payment system that is convenient and easy to use.”
“That’s something I’m going to be tackling very shortly,” he continued.
Eng defined that a part of the issue might be getting the bodily tech into place on the T’s many busses and subway doorways and making that match up with fee and accounting software program, however the General Manager additionally mentioned that he wasn’t able to say exactly what was taking so lengthy.
“I have to dive a little deeper into that before I can answer that fully,” he mentioned.
With simply three months on the job, the fare system venture is only one of myriad of issues Eng is diving into on the beleaguered company. The T is going through obligatory compliance with a Federal Transit Administration security inspection report detailing severe security deficiencies, flagging ridership numbers, on-going service delays and sluggish zones.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”