RVTD Launches TouchPass Electronic Fare Collection Service

MEDFORD, Ore., April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Rogue Valley Transportation District (RVTD) announced the successful implementation of the TouchPass electronic fare collection system, which allows passengers to purchase fare products online and ride RVTD buses using smart cards and mobile apps. RVTD began piloting the new system last summer and entered an agreement with system provider Delerrok, Inc. (Delerrok) in October. Since then, RVTD has moved its most popular paper passes to TouchPass smart cards and announced availability this week of the TouchPass Transit mobile app on the App Store (iOS) and Google Play (Android). TouchPass use is growing rapidly and already accounts for over one in three RVTD boardings. "The TouchPass implementation has gone incredibly smoothly, and we can now call it a success," said Julie Brown, RVTD General Manager. "We are delighted to offer our passengers an easier way to ride and the data provided by the system will help us continue to improve service."

To ride, passengers with TouchPass cards or the TouchPass mobile app simply tap their cards or show their smartphones at TouchPass readers onboard buses. TouchPass is an "account-based" electronic fare collection system, so named because account information is held in secure servers rather than written to cards as in older systems. This allows passengers to buy fare products anywhere—at ticket windows, online or on the mobile app—and use them instantly. Although similar systems—costing tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars—have been deployed at a few larger agencies, RVTD's implementation marks the first such deployment at an agency of its size. Cloud-based design allowed RVTD's deployment to cost far less and move ahead more rapidly than other account-based fare systems. According to Ms. Brown, "We did our homework and found Delerrok's subscription service model offered the greatest value." RVTD Associate Planner Jon Sullivan adds, "We thought we could afford only a mobile ticketing app, but TouchPass gave us all the big-agency features on a small-agency budget."

Delerrok, a San Diego area company, provides electronic fare collection (EFC) as a subscription service. "Offering a configurable cloud service is a radical departure from the high capital costs, long development schedules, and inflexible designs of the turnkey fare collection systems of the past," explains Delerrok Chief Product Officer Gary Yamamura, who founded Delerrok along with fellow transit industry veterans Bob Hamilton and Susumu Kusakabe. The three built the company on the belief that EFC should be available to transit agencies of any size or budget. TouchPass Readers onboard buses communicate directly with powerful cloud servers to avoid the costly agency infrastructure common to other systems. Cloud servers process fare purchases and payments in real time, making data available to agencies and passengers instantly. Agencies are charged low fees based on passenger usage, and constant backend enhancements ensure the secure, end-to-end solution never becomes obsolete.

About Rogue Valley Transportation District (www.RVTD.org):  RVTD is the public transportation provider serving Medford, Ashland, Central Point, Talent, Phoenix, White City, and Jacksonville, Oregon. RVTD's mission is to provide quality public transportation, viewed by residents and visitors as a realistic and viable alternative to the personal automobile, and to thereby improve the quality of life in the Rogue Valley.

About Delerrok: Delerrok Inc. (www.delerrok.com), based in Vista, California provides TouchPass, electronic fare collection as a subscription service. The company was founded in 2012 by fare collection industry consultants Robert Hamilton and Gary Yamamura along with Susumu Kusakabe, renowned developer of Japan's FeliCa transit smart card technology and inventor of Near Field Communications (NFC).

Media Contact:
Jon Sullivan
(541) 779-5821
[email protected]

SOURCE Rogue Valley Transportation District