United States Department of Transportation
i
Assessment of WMATA's Automatic Fare Collection Equipment Performance
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1981-01-01
[PDF-7.76 MB]
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Corporate Contributors:John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.) ; United States. Department of Transportation. Research and Special Programs Administration ; United States. Urban Mass Transportation Administration. Office of Technology Development and Deployment ; United States. Department of Transportation. Urban Mass Transportation Administration. Office of Rail and Construction Technology
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Abstract:The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has had an Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) system in operation since June 1977. The AFC system, comprised of entry/exit gates, farecard vendors, and addfare machines, initially encountered many operational set-backs due to unreliable equipment and an inadequate spare parts inventory. The first set of improvements occurred in December 1978 and January 1979 and were directed toward the farecard ticket transport. Modifications were made to the hinges, rollers, and printers of the AFC equipment. The second improvement program occurred in February 1980 and involved two separate programs. Retrofit A incorporated further changes to the ticket transport, while Retrofit B included modification to the ticket transport, coin acceptor, and bill verifier. In light of the problems associated with WMATA's AFC system, this study was commissioned to quantitatively evaluate the reliability and availability of WMATA's AFC system and subsystems by way of standard statistical tests. The study was conducted in three separate phases, each with its own objective. The first phase focused on conducting a reliability and availability analysis of WMATA's farecard vendors and their elements (ticket transport, coin acceptor, and bill verifier) based on data collected in 1978 and 1979. The second phase was to develop and apply a data collection and analysis plan to measure the effectiveness of improvements (Retrofits A and B) to all AFC system equipment and their elements. The final phase utilized data generated from the first two phases to estimate the impacts of AFC alternatives on system effectiveness. This study presents the findings of each of the phases that were conducted.
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