By Frank on February 27, 2008
ERG, the company that some have blamed for the delay in the ORCA card, is being criticized for similar delays in delivering the Bay Area’s TransLink card:
Shortly after the announcement in Australia, [BART controller-treasurer] Schroeder sent an e-mail to Bay Area transportation agency officials overseeing the TransLink project, urging them to cut their losses with ERG and “prepare to take whatever legal means are necessary to deal with the inevitable lawsuits that ERG will file.”
…
The Bay Area-wide launch of TransLink is now set for 2010.
The deadlines keep being extended because of various software problems, hardware glitches and concerns raised by participating agency officials who want to make sure they will get the revenue they’re owed from TransLink transactions.
Getting officials in the various agencies – each with their own administrators and governing boards – to work together has not been easy, given their desire to make sure they won’t be short-changed.
Getting the mechanics and the incentives aligned for these kind of projects is never simple, but a pattern seems to be developing here. I’m sure serial catowner will use this opportunity explain to me why this is yet another reason we need regional transportation governance. I think it would be a pretty plausible case to make.
Posted in prosperity
By Frank on January 29, 2008
A press release on KC Metro’s website says:
By 2006, passengers will be able to easily transfer from one system to another without digging in their pockets for extra fares and tickets. It will just take a wave of a “smart card” embedded with a microchip that automatically calculates any fare due. The cards can be reloaded and used indefinitely, and will eliminate the current system of more than 300 types of tickets, passes and tokens.
Well, as you can see, it’s 2008 and the fabled ORCA card is not here yet (and is probably a year or more away). What happened?
Well, KIRO says that the problem could be the contractor, ERG. ERG was recently fired by the city of Sydney, Australia, for completely failing to deliver a smart card for that city, after 5 years of delays.
ERG has pushed back hard, countersuing the city and arguing that it was bureaucratic disinterest and incompetence that doomed the project. The company also designed Hong Kong’s Octopus Card, which by all accounts is incredible successful, so I wouldn’t be so quick to put all the blame on them.
Posted in prosperity, ST
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