Canada’s six national banks and Quebec’s Caisse Desjardins, as well as Visa, MasterCard and global high-tech giants such as Hewlett-Packard, Siemens and IBM are among the firms that have expressed interest in bidding for the Toronto Transit Commission’s proposed “open payment” fare collection system.
The public-private partnership will allow riders to pay fares with contactless credit or bank cards instead of traditional electronic fare cards.
The list of potential bidders appears on the TTC’s procurements website. Friday is the deadline for submitting “statements of pre-qualification.”
Among the other firms kicking the tires of the multi-million-dollar/multi-year deal: U.S. engineering giant Parsons, which has worked previously with the TTC on its smart card plans; Cubic, which has built electronic fare systems for transit agencies around the world; Moneris, a debit card payments processing outfit; and Accenture, the firm that’s building the Ontario government’s Presto smart card.
TTC staff will spend the next two weeks evaluating the proponents and meeting with those deemed to be qualified. According to tender documents released in mid-August, the TTC will issue a formal request for proposals on Oct. 25, which happens to be civic election day.
Two of the five mayoral candidates have called on the TTC to halt the process because of the imminent change in political leadership.
Ontario Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne said Thursday that the Presto smart card system, currently being rolled out on GO Transit, “absolutely” needs the TTC’s participation.
Outgoing TTC chair Adam Giambrone has advocated open payment as a low-cost alternative to Presto, which he says can’t be implemented on the TTC without a substantial grant from the province. Though heavily hyped, open payment is not currently in general use in any North American city, although New York is running a trial and Chicago is in the midst of its own request for proposals.
Special to The Globe and Mail, with a report from The Canadian Press
