INIT revolutionizes e-fare with open payments system in Portland-Vancouver Metropolitan Area

INIT’s back-end processing software, MOBILEvario, serves as the core intelligence for the account-based and open payment fare system. It manages and processes fares in real time, recognizes and processes revenue sharing, as well as manages accounts and automates reconciliations for all three agencies. Offline processing is another added benefit of the INIT system. In the event of a network outage, fare payments can still be processed ensuring revenues are not lost.

“My vision was to build innovative, open payments, open architecture fare collection system for all of our regional riders,” says Chris Tucker, TriMet Project Manager. “We now have open payments, real-time fare calculation, daily and monthly fare capping, and seamless travel across three regional transit agencies and two states.”

INIT developed the system using open architecture API’s so that other partners could be easily incorporated. As an example, the IVR system and mobile apps were able to easily integrate with the INIT open payments e-fare system which benefited riders using the system with further tools and greater functionality.

TriMet and C-TRAN have the added benefit of a fully-integrated operations control and real-time passenger information system from INIT. The addition of the open payment e-fare component allows the agencies to realize a fully integrated Intelligent Transportation System. Due to INIT’s flexible and modular solution design, the e-fare module was installed within all Portland Streetcars without the need to interface with an operations control system.

“INIT has been an amazing partner,” said Sean Donaghy, C-TRAN CEO. “The integrated approach they took helped us realize the launch of this modern and seamless open payments solution. What that means for our riders is they can move from the Streetcar to a TriMet bus, over to C-TRAN and all the way throughout the system with ease.”

The open payments system within the Portland-Vancouver Metropolitan Region was implemented within budget and on time.