Port Authority cellphone app for bus fares to be tested

Port Authority will begin installing equipment Monday to test a long-awaited mobile payment app that will allow riders to pay fares using their smartphones.

Initially, authority employees and select groups will test the app on seven routes and 50 buses to make sure it works as expected. If so, the agency will order equipment to be installed on all 720 buses and 80 light rail vehicles for additional testing, but the agency isn’t sure when the system will be available to the general public because it doesn’t know how long it will take to receive, install and test the entire system, said Jeffrey Devlin, the authority’s chief information officer.

Mr. Devlin said during board committee meetings Friday the agency will install monitors, also known as validators, on 24 buses based at the Collier garage and 26 at the Ross garage. The devices, about the size of an old television VCR, will be to the right of the fare box on these routes: 1 Freeport Road; 16 Brighton; 41 Bower Hill; 91 Butler Street; G3 Moon Flyer; G31 Bridgeville Flyer; and O12 McKnight Flyer.

The system will work like this: Riders will download the app to a cellphone and purchase their preferred fare — a day pass, weekly pass, monthly pass or annual pass — using a credit card or bank account before they get on the bus or light rail car. There also will be special designations for fares to ride the incline or to Pittsburgh

International Airport to avoid confusion for visitors or infrequent users, although the amount will be the same.

Mr. Devlin stressed that the system also will allow people without cellphones to buy their fares on a computer.

The authority will continue to accept cash and the prepaid

ConnectCard to pay fares.

“It’s just another option we’re making available to our riders,” Mr. Devlin said. “The beauty of it is, you can be standing at the bus stop and purchase the fare and 12 seconds later get on the bus and use it. You don’t have to do it in advance like the ConnectCard.”

The app has been under development for more than a year through a contract of nearly $2 million with Masabi, which will receive a percentage of fares paid using the app. That percentage will decline as more riders use the app.

The system could have the capability to allow free transfers and permit fare capping, where riders who don’t have the upfront money to buy weekly or monthly passes automatically receive those benefits when they pay enough individual fares to reach those thresholds. Transit advocates have been pushing for those items to be included to provide equity to low-income riders, who sometimes have to pay three full fares to transfer twice to get from one part-time job to another if they are using cash.

But whether that will be allowed is a decision that will be made by the authority board as part of its review of the agency’s fare policy, Mr. Devlin said. The agency hired California consultant Four Nine Technologies under a three-year, $210,000 contract last January to review its fare policy.

The consultant was supposed to give the agency a draft policy last month, but spokesman Adam Brandolph said there’s “no update right now” on those recommendations. He said the agency expects to continue studying its fare policy through a series of public meetings throughout the year.

CEO Katharine Eagan Kelleman has said she agrees with the concepts of free transfers and fare capping, but the consultant will recommend whether the agency can afford to provide those benefits. When the agency considered eliminating transfer fees in 2016, it estimated the agency would lose $4.5 million to $5 million in revenue.