Why touchless digital fare collection is vital for agencies

In the past, agencies could get by with only offering riders a couple physical options for payment. Fare boxes and cards got the job done. However, during today’s increasingly digital age (and germ-adverse times), folks are looking for better alternatives to purchasing, storing, and redeeming fares.

If you’re like most agencies, you understand the value of mobile ticketing. Tickets are on your rider’s phones at all times, making it much easier to purchase and reload, and much more COVID-friendly than touching cards and cash all the time.

Implementing touchless mobile ticketing is something that your firm has probably had on it's radar for a while, however, there are usually some roadblocks that stand in the way of making this a reality, such as:

1. Needing to install costly fare validators or buying new hardware to supplement mobile ticketing

2. Fixed costs (that could be out of budget) that need to be run by the board and/or need to wait for the next budget approval cycle

3. Getting digital fare collection up and running with seems like a daunting task

For agencies, getting bogged down with some of these steps is not only hurtful to your rider experience by making it incrementally harder for them to ride, but it also discourages folks from riding public transit during COVID because of the fear of touching a contaminated surface.

Agencies have a couple options: Do what they’ve always done and hope that folks slowly return to cards and cash, or take a step forward with your rider experience and begin to roll out digital fare purchasing and collection.

With the other guys, you need to purchase hardware, wait for budget approval processes, then take months to onboard. With Tixora, no costly validators or hardware is needed to supplement your mobile ticket redemption (everything is visually validated), getting up and running takes about 2 weeks instead of 3 months, and there are no fixed costs associated with the implementation (the fee is a % of ticket sales, so fees are only paid when your riders are back to riding again)!

If you’d like to talk through your mobile fare collection strategy and weigh your options, reach out to us at hello@tixora.com. If we don’t think we’d be a good fit for what your team is looking for with digital fare collection, we’ll be sure to point you in the right direction.