Cities that have deployed Modeshift's contactless fare collection system have seen adoption rates increase by upwards of 110 percent as the pandemic drives demand for touchless options
Today, Modeshift, a leading contactless fare collection system provider, announced significant growth in 2020 that is only picking up speed in the new year following integrations in Lancaster and Reading Pennsylvania. Since 2017, the startup has grown to offer contactless fare collection systems for use on buses, railways, e-scooters and ride-sharing services in six states and 10 countries around the world.
The latest figures from the National Transit Database report that between February 2020 and November 2020, the number of public transit users in the United States fell by 62 percent, or 482 million rides. As a result of this, public transit agencies are facing an anticipated $23.8 billion shortfall through the end of 2021, even after the funding received through the CARES Act.
"The need to keep passengers and staff safe while providing reliable services has never been greater for public transit authorities," said Miroslav Katsarov, CEO of Modeshift. "We’re proud that 20 cities around the world have trusted us to implement contactless fare collection systems on their public transit networks, and we hope that riders feel safer using it."
In the first quarter of 2020, contactless transactions grew 40 percent globally, and according to American Express, 73 percent of US merchants prefer customers to use contactless payments instead of handling cash. With the demand and acceptance of contactless payments growing among consumers and merchants alike, public transit authorities have a unique opportunity to implement this technology widely, knowing it will be used and appreciated by users.
"Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve seen a large decline in the number of public transit users across Berks and Lancaster county." Dave Kilmer, Executive Director of the South Central Transit Authority in Pennsylvania stated. "Since implementing Modeshift’s contactless fare collection system we’ve seen the adoption rate increase week over week, and now, 99 percent of our public transit users have migrated to the new system and prefer contactless payments for fares."
With Modeshift’s technology, transit users can purchase tickets through a white label mobile application, which generates a unique QR code for each fare. Users can redeem this fare by scanning the QR code at a contactless terminal located on the public transit vehicle.
Features of Modeshift’s Fare-Collection System include:
Visit https://modeshift.com/ for more information.
About Modeshift
Modeshift, Inc. is a technology company with the mission to enable small and middle size transit agencies to provide intelligent transportation services. Our core product is Account-based Fare Collection System, based on the Microsoft Azure cloud and delivered as a service (Software as a Service – SaaS).
Modeshift also provides other subsystems which complete the stack of hardware and software needed to operate a modern transit system such as Mobile ticketing, AVL/CAD and real-time passenger information.
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