The term “Managed Services” relates to an innovative approach to managing major Transit Authority operations called DBOM – Design Build Operate Maintain. In fact, Managed Services is simply another term for the Operate and Maintain portion of the DBOM paradigm. In simple terms, Managed Services means relying on a third party to perform operational and maintenance services that would otherwise be performed in-house by a Transit Authority.

Such services may include operating a customer contact center, manning a technical help desk or providing ongoing hardware and software maintenance. So, instead of having a Transit Authority employee making software updates or loading new fare tables, an employee of a third party acting on behalf of the Transit Authority completes the work. These third party employees are trained and outfitted in a way that all of the operations and maintenance activities are transparent to Transit Authority staff and customers.

The global market for Managed Services relating to automated fare collection is growing extremely rapidly. One key reason for this growth relates to the considerable increase in regional integration of transportation programs. Local transit authorities, once comfortable with managing their own fare collection operations, are now seeking third party support to handle the significantly greater technical complexities (resulting in financial and operational risk) of managing fare collection across multiple agencies and modes arising during regional integration. For example, once the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) determined it would integrate more than 10 regional transportation companies into its new contactless smart card fare collection solution, Metro considered it necessary to contract for third party-provided Managed Services to support the far greater levels of complex integration and risk inherent in the newly expanded regional system.

Managed Services for automated fare collection are on the rise for two further reasons, namely: the increasing number of new services offered and the higher levels of customer service required by end users of these systems. New services, many facilitated by the implementation of contactless smart card technology, such as Internet Auto-Reload, parking functionality, and event ticketing, are creating extraordinary excitement for their customer benefits and revenue generation potential. However, these benefits come at the price of increased complexity and risk of operating and maintaining the new systems compared to legacy systems managing only basic services. To the second point, meeting the high levels of service required by customers expecting Credit and Loyalty Card company responsiveness can drive rapid cost increases to transit authorities unfamiliar with managing “higher touch” customer service operations. In both of these cases, transit authorities are becoming increasingly interested in having third party Managed Services deliver the operations and maintenance required to meet the challenges of new services and service level expectations.

The opportunity for Managed Services comes from not only new fare collection implementations but also a large number of previously installed systems. In fact, transit authorities who have recently completed Design and Build or are preparing for a significant systems expansion regularly determine that they lack an infrastructure or set of robust management processes that will adequately service end users at a reasonable cost. With technical and financial risks increasing as programs expand beyond single operators into regional systems, and heavy scrutiny of operating efficiencies continuing unabated, transit authorities frequently look to third party-provided Managed Services as key components of their Operate and Maintain functions relating to fare collection.

Transit authorities thinking about launching a new automated fare collection system, expanding an existing program, or integrating regionally will benefit from investigating how they may best support their customers when operating and maintaining the extensive technical infrastructure required for their prospective programs. Launching a new fare collection system commonly provides outstanding benefits including reduction in fraud, improvement in customer experience, increases in ridership, and enhancements to financial management capabilities. However, these remarkable advantages can be quickly and irreversibly lost if a transit authority finds difficulty in adequately managing the operations and maintenance of the new systems and processes.

Fortunately, Cubic provides an answer to transit authorities looking for relief from the pressures of operating and maintaining new fare collection systems. Historically, Cubic has been responsible for the Design and Build of the world’s largest and most complicated projects. What is not commonly known is that Cubic is also responsible for the fare collection integration of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington and London, to name a few.

Indeed, Cubic is a world leader in fare collection Operate and Maintain functions. In fact, Cubic operates the Oyster™ card system in London, which processes billions of transactions per year. As part of its extensive contract, Cubic operates and maintains the Oyster card business by providing technical help desk and maintenance for more than 300 stations and 7000 buses. And with our partners, Cubic provides an end-to end ticketing solution that includes millions of magnetic cards and over 2 million contactless smart cards. Cubic and its partners even support and manage a retail network of over 3000 merchants with over $500 million in transactions!

By working in tandem with transit authorities, Cubic can share market leading skills and experience to deliver top level customer experiences at highly efficient levels of expense. The net result is that the transit authority captures all of the rewards of a fully functioning automated fare collection system while significantly reducing risk – a true Express Trip to success!

Visit Cubic on the web at www.cubic.com.