Calgary Transit relaunches electronic fare card project

Calgary Transit has renewed its partnership with a Spanish company to develop an electronic fare card for riders of its buses and C-Trains.

• Calgary Transit looks to renew electronic fare card efforts
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• BLOG |Connect card:Not so transparent, not so open

Telvent previously held acontract to provide the reloadable fare card.

Heres hoping well be able to have the Connect card or as I prefer to call it, 'the prairie oyster' very, very soon.- Calgary MayorNaheedNenshi

But that dealwas terminated last year at a cost of $3.5 million afterTelvent could not get the Connect card, to work properly during a pilot program.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said Monday the company has made both technical and management changes. Earlier this year,Telventapproached Calgary Transit to say it had resolved the problems and wanted to resume the project.

Nenshi said Calgary Transit managementrecommended giving Telvent another try, while keeping a very close eye on the project.The city agreed, concluding that it would cost millions of dollars more to start from scratch with a new company.

"As weve gone back to the market, we have realized that there are a number of solutions on the market, but that would have required spending a lot more money on this Calgary Transit solution."

Last time aroundsoftware issues were identified, but beyond that it wasnt revealed exactly what caused the card glitches during the pilot program.

Available within theyear?

When asked, Nenshi said he'd liketo see the cards available within a year.

"Heres hoping well be able to have the Connect cardor as I prefer to call it, 'the prairie oyster' very, very soon."

The company provides similar technology to other major transit systems in China, Mexico and Spain.

A new deal was officially signedSunday night.