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Committee advances DDOT mobile-fare and real-time tracking contracts to formal review
Summary
The committee voted to send to new business two DDOT contracts: a one-year extension for Token Transit mobile ticketing (increasing contract funds while DDOT upgrades fareboxes) and a three-year contract with Swiftly to improve real-time bus-prediction accuracy and rider alerts.
The Detroit Department of Transportation’s technology contracts to support mobile ticketing and real-time vehicle tracking advanced from committee to the full council with recommendations to approve.
Director Robert Kramer described an amendment to the Token Transit contract (6004802) that adds $2,000,901 and reduces the renewal term to one year while the city installs new fareboxes. Kramer said the shorter extension provides flexibility because new farebox hardware will unlock additional stored-value and phone-payment features.
"This contract with Token Transit is what facilitates the mobile passes that people can use ... The contract period is for one more year," Kramer said.
On real-time tracking, Kramer described a proposed three-year contract (6007822) with Swiftly for $1,222,179 to replace DDOT’s current real-time feed and to improve prediction accuracy used by apps like Transit, Google Maps and Apple Maps. He said Swiftly can also give customer-service staff easier tools to publish rider alerts and to diagnose on-street problems.
Kramer said implementation should take about 30 days and promised the technology would allow better rider communications; the committee approved forwarding both items to new business with recommendations to approve.
The committee also discussed local vendor opportunities and data-collection questions; Kramer said personally identifying payment data is not stored by the contractor and suggested outreach to local tech partners when new farebox capabilities are in place.
