PATCO to expand fare media options
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-ChiefPATCO passengers next week will be able to manage their electronic fare cards on the Internet, and by September will be able to use a credit card, instead of the PATCO-only card, to pay fares on the bistate line, linking New Jersey’s Camden County with Philadelphia.
The agency also plans to launch a one-year pilot program for credit-card fare payment. San Diego-based Cubic Transportation Systems Inc. is upgrading PATCO’s fare gates to read bank cards that have an embedded electronic chip. Cubic will pay the cost of upgrading PATCO’s gates and computer operating system, as well as the transaction fees charged by cardholders’ banks. The upgrades are worth an estimated $680,000.
PATCO customers currently can use a smart card, but on June 13 can tap use of an online system permitting customers to add value to the cards and view their transaction histories. The system will be available at www.patcofreedomcard.org.
“A lot of eyes will be on our operation,” Cheryl Spicer, assistant general manager of PATCO, said at a meeting Wednesday of the Delaware River Port Authority, PATCO’s parent organization.
