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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/14/BA9QRHTEF.DTL

Glitches, spiraling costs may delay TransLink expansion
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

It has been decades since Bay Area transit officials started talking about creating one pass that could be used on any bus, train or ferry, and five years since a small-scale, short-lived demonstration project put the concept to the test.

But software problems, spiraling costs and initial difficulty in getting the participating transportation agencies to cooperate with each other have pushed back the projected full-scale launch to 2010, and at least one official says it's unlikely that BART, Muni and Caltrain will be using the pass in December as anticipated.

"This whole process has been a bit of a saga," said Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the regional agency coordinating the program.

The program, once fully operational, will allow Bay Area transit riders to use one prepaid fare card on any of the 26 participating systems. One goal is to make travel on multiple carriers easier on passengers, who won't have to bother with finding the correct change, juggling various passes or keeping track of transfers. Another goal is to reduce cash transactions, something transit agencies are eager to do because of the cost of collecting, counting and protecting the cash.

TransLink, as it is called, is set up to be phased in over several years. AC Transit and the Golden Gate ferry and bus system went on line last year. Both have experienced technical problems, but most of the kinks have been worked out, officials say. The aim is to add the Bay Area's two largest transit operations - Muni in San Francisco and BART - along with Caltrain by the end of the year.

But at least one of the key players says that December target is too ambitious.

"It's not credible," said Gary LaBonte, BART's executive manager of Transit System Development. He made his statement Monday at a meeting of the TransLink Operating Group, a panel representing the agencies charged with getting the universal pass up and running.

"It's going to take time to shake out all the bugs. The software we're talking about is extremely complicated," said LaBonte, whose main job with the TransLink Operating Group is to bird-dog the implementation schedule.

Several members of the group weren't ready to concede that the plan to include Muni, BART and Caltrain is falling further behind schedule.

MTC "is certainly still striving for that date," said Melanie Crotty, the agency's director of traveler coordination and information.

And Jennifer Hamilton, chief information officer for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which runs Muni, said she expects that the entire fleet will be outfitted with the TransLink card-readers and be ready to go by the end of the year. Some streetcars still have the readers from the 2002 experiment.

But LaBonte said his chief concern isn't the equipment. His concern is the software that will link all the agencies and assure that the fare revenue is accurately tallied and distributed to the participating agencies in a timely fashion.

Concerns over software have been paramount since the get-go. In 1999, MTC awarded the primary TransLink contract to Motorola. Since then, one of the subcontractors, ERG Ltd. of Australia, has taken over as the company in charge of design and implementation. Heminger said a series of technical glitches and software challenges has led to delays, pushing the implementation of TransLink years behind schedule.

Cost of the program has ballooned from the original estimate of $25 million to $130 million today, in part because of changes ordered by the transit agencies. Funding comes from a combination of local, state and federal sources.

AC Transit, in particular, and the Golden Gate ferry and bus system to a lesser extent, have had to deal with mechanical and software problems, but representatives from both agencies said Monday the problems largely have been fixed.

The big test will be when BART and Muni come on line. Between them, they have more than 1 million riders a day.

Currently, more than 9,000 TransLink cards have been issued, and weekday use of the cards averages 4,700. There are about 2,000 boardings a day on Golden Gate ferries, 1,700 on Golden Gate buses, 880 on AC Transit buses and 100 on Muni's light-rail streetcars.

"We have had our problems and haven't been happy with how this has proceeded," Heminger said. "But we are determined to get this (project) built, and once we do we are confident that people will love it."