It seems the MBTA’s new General Manager, Phil Eng, is still getting his feet underneath him in his somewhat unenviable role as the person responsible for fixing the state’s perennially problematic mass transit system.
The former president of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Long Island Rail Road, who began his job as chief of the state’s beleaguered transportation network in March, was unable to explain why the MBTA hasn’t implemented a tap-and-go fare system used by many modern transportation agencies, despite an already existing but severely over cost five-year-old contract to do just that.
As originally planned, the new technology was meant to go live in 2021, but in February the MBTA announced they did not expect to fully implement the nearly $1 billion automated fare collection system until 2024
The upgrade, contracted out in 2018 to Boston AFC 2.0 OpCo LLC, a subsidiary of Cubic Transportation Systems, would replace the CharlieCard system installed in 2006 with a contactless payment apparatus allowing riders to tap or board at any door with a fare card, smartphone or credit card. It would, in theory, speed boarding and cut down on fare evasion.
Eng, speaking with WBZ political analyst Jon Keller, said that he was still being briefed over the “challenges that are on-going” leading to the new system’s seriously overdue implementation and hundreds of millions in cost overruns.
“We are having meetings with Cubic to further progress that project,” he said. “That is something that I’m diving into. I understand how important it is to have a payment system that is convenient and easy to use.”
“That’s something I’m going to be tackling very shortly,” he continued.
Eng explained that part of the problem is probably getting the physical tech into place on the T’s many busses and subway doors and making that match up with payment and accounting software, but the General Manager also said that he wasn’t ready to say precisely what was taking so long.
“I have to dive a little deeper into that before I can answer that fully,” he said.
With just three months on the job, the fare system project is just one of myriad of problems Eng is diving into at the beleaguered agency. The T is facing mandatory compliance with a Federal Transit Administration safety inspection report detailing serious safety deficiencies, flagging ridership numbers, on-going service delays and slow zones.