Metra and Pace on Wednesday unveiled plans for a Ventra mobile-ticketing app that will debut next year.
Metra Executive Director Don Orseno told the CTA board at Wednesday’s monthly meeting that testing by the commuter railroad will begin in February on all 11 Metra lines, with “full implementation” by the end of the year. Orseno said the transit agency will be looking for volunteers on all 11 lines to use the smartphone app. The app will available on Android and iPhone but not Blackberry.
The CTA is paying $1.7 million for the development of the mobile app, officials said.
Metra and Pace are paying a total of $800,000, and the two agencies will also pay monthly service fees for the app’s management.
The changes announced Wednesday do not constitute the universal fare system that was envisioned as far back as the late 1990s. Such a system would enable all transit riders to use one fare card seamlessly on all three transit systems.
Metra Chairman Martin Oberman told the CTA board Wednesday that the agreement “lays the groundwork to eventually have a universal fare system.”
Riders without smartphones will be unable to participate.
Once the app is activated on Metra, customers will present their smartphones, loaded with one-ride tickets or passes, to conductors. The conductors will use mobile devices to validate and collect the fares from the phones, which will serve as “virtual cards,” officials said.
In addition, Ventra cards in which customers have opened an optional prepaid debit MasterCard account can use the cards to purchase Metra fares at Metra ticket windows, officials said.
CTA President Forrest Claypool said the cooperation between CTA and Metra did not occur sooner because the previous Metra executive director, Alex Clifford, “was not enamored” with “the Ventra solution.”
He described the past working relationship between the transit agencies as unstable.
“It was like a tree talking in the woods and nobody was around to hear it,” Claypool said.
The Illinois General Assembly has set a 2015 deadline for the CTA, Metra and Pace to operate under a universal fare system.
In addition to allowing riders on all three systems to use their smartphones to pay for rides, the free app, which the CTA has promised since Ventra was launched in September 2013, will fill some voids in the existing Ventra system.
Commuters will be able to check Ventra account balances and receive alerts regarding account activity, officials have said.
The smartphone payment will work the same way air travelers use mobile phones for electronic boarding passes instead of using paper tickets.
In addition to airlines and Amtrak, a number of transit systems in the U.S. have offered mobile apps in recent years as a customer convenience.
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The CTA paid almost $500 million for the Ventra system, which was developed by Cubic Transportation Systems Inc.
Ventra was plagued by a series of technical and customer service problems throughout late 2013.