Transit saves $300k on fare boxes by using social media

As B.C. Transit continues to add to its fleet and gradually convert the more than 1,000 buses to electric power by 2040, each new bus also needs a new fare box.

Earlier this year, B.C. Transit held an executive meeting on the transition from the current fare boxes to the new electronic fare-collection system. Someone joked that they should consider buying used fare boxes on eBay.

“We all laughed at the idea,” president and CEO Erinn Pinkerton said in a recent newsletter to staff. “However, after trying unsuccessfully to come up with other options, we realized quickly that we had nothing to lose by considering this further.”

With new buses being delivered in 2020 and B.C. Transit’s new electronic fare-collection system in the early stages, project managers needed to know what fare boxes they should be installing, she said.

“At just over $13,000 per bus, it is a tough decision to purchase our existing fare boxes when we know that we will be phasing them out.”

In fact, as the use of cash continues to decrease in the daily routine of Canadians, B.C. Transit is in the process of moving its customers to a “bring your own ticket” model. It means the use of a ticket on a phone, or monthly pass, and they see a future where the cash boxes will be much simpler and less expensive than the existing one.

“We contacted almost every transit agency in North America that uses Cents-a-Bill fare boxes, hoping they had some to spare,” Pinkerton said.

They had scoured eBay and other sites unsuccessfully when one of B.C. Transit’s own mechanics told them about a Facebook group dedicated to transit memorabilia and bus parts.

“We joined the group and called the moderator,” Pinkerton said. “(They) put us in contact with three vendors in California that, combined, had 28 fare boxes for sale.”

A small team of B.C. Transit employees flew to California, rented a U-Haul truck and purchased the fare boxes, Pinkerton said. The team drove the U-Haul full of fare boxes to the Las Vegas warehouse of bus-building company Alexander Dennis, whose staff packaged them on pallets and shipped them.

“Four days later, our fare boxes arrived and we were able to have them service ready for about $2,500 each, including all the adventure costs to get them,” Pinkerton said.

Compared to the cost of purchasing new, it saved B.C. Transit almost $300,000.

From a mechanic’s initial suggestion, B.C. Transit staff ultimately scored 28 used fare boxes that were sitting in California storage and saved $300,000.