Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority
Cleveland, OH
Avail Customer since 2002
GCRTA offers numerous riding options in the greater Cleveland area, such as Bus, Rapid Transit, Park-N-Ride, Community Circulators, Paratransit, as well as a Downtown Loop and currently operates a mixed fleet of approximately 1100 vehicles.
- Fare collection system engineering services
2002 – Avail Technologies, developed a set of expanded capabilities for GCRTA’s existing fare collection system. This contract was awarded to Avail based on the fact that the original manufacturer was unable to make the modifications within the time frame required to support the fare changes GCRTA was instituting. The affected equipment included 1200 electronic fareboxes, ticket reading/issuing units installed in buses, and various fare gates installed at GCRTA’s major light-rail hubs. To accomplish this, Avail had to baseline GCRTA’s current system by reverse engineering the assembly code (firmware), designing and implementing the software modifications, and thoroughly testing the resulting system. This effort was lead by Avail’s engineering staff with limited support from GCRTA and the original product provider. The modified firmware was then deployed throughout GCRTA’s fleet, and to date has performed flawlessly. These modifications provided GCRTA with a tremendous cost savings by allowing them to incorporate changes that supported their new fare structure, providing more flexible fare payment options to their ridership, and by extending the life of their existing fare collection system. Without these changes, GCRTA would have incurred enormous costs and prolonged service interruptions, as they would have had to procure and install a new fare collection system.
2006 – GCRTA has contracted with Avail again to make firmware upgrades to their fare collection system to support new service enhancements and fare collection policies.
http://www.gcrta.org
For more information regarding this project or to request references, please contact us
