The PATCO High Speed Line connects Center City Philadelphia to suburban Camden County, New Jersey and is a principal connection to two other major transit systems that serve the northeast corridor - New Jersey Transit and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. Under the new contract, Cubic will deliver an advanced, open-architecture fare collection system of operational software, communications, sales terminals for customer agents, multi-language ticket vending machines that issue smart cards and magnetically encoded tickets, faregates and parking equipment for the 13 rail stations and seven parking facilities servicing PATCOs 14.2-mile rail line. The new system will support the use of both smart cards for regular commuters and magnetically encoded single-ride and round-trip tickets for occasional riders and tourists. Smart cards will be the only medium accepted at the agencys gated parking facilities from 5 a.m. until 10 a.m. After 10 a.m., the agency will allow free entry. Metered parking spaces and free lots will still be available. Cubic also is supplying automated customer service features including credit-debit payment, internet-based ticketing, autoload (the ability to automatically load value onto the card), and electronic transit benefits delivery. These and other advanced capabilities will be integrated and managed by Cubics Nextfare(TM) Central System, a configurable suite of software designed using industry standards, open platforms and integrated commercial off-the-shelf applications to provide the core fare collection, management and reporting functions. The system is one of the first systems compliant with the Regional Interoperability Standard for Electronic Transit Fare Payments (RIS) which was developed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and forms the basis for a national standard currently being reviewed by the American Public Transportation Association. PATCOs new system will replace the system installed by Cubic in 1975, which was the nations first automated fare collection system to use plastic magnetically encoded tickets, a popular fare product still used in many transit systems today. Delivery of the new system is scheduled for the end of 2006.
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