Cubic Awarded Contract for Smart Card System for Bus and Rail Transport in Modena, Italy

In addition, ATCM awarded Cubic a five-year contract extension, valued at approximately 300,000 Euro (US$350,000) per year, on its existing service contract. Under the new contract, Cubic will upgrade Italys first magnetics-based fare collection system, which was installed by Cubic Nordic in 1993, with its state-of-the-art smart card system. Cubic will deploy its on-bus processing platform, consisting of a Driver Control Unit and validator, throughout ATCMs bus fleet of 405 vehicles. This platform integrates, in one single device, automatic fare collection and intelligent transportation systems, such as GPS-based vehicle tracking, passenger counting, video surveillance and other transit management applications. Cubic also will install 35 smart card validators at ATCMs two train lines, which will allow commuters to pay for trips on bus or rail using a single smart card. Passengers will pay their fares on the station platform using the validators before the trains arrive instead of onboard the train. Enhancements will also be added to the agencys back office system, including the addition of the newest generation transit application software from Cubics Nextfare(TM) Central System suite. This software creates and manages all information related to the transaction including card types, prices, the format of the smart card data, ticket layout, system parameters and the network of bus route plans with stops and GPS coordinates. Initially, a pilot of the new smart card-based system will launch in March 2005, with full-system operations by later in the year.