The Smart Box™ Magnetic Ticket Unit
A Proven Solution for On-Board Ticketing

• Lowers the costs of handling transfers and reduces transfer abuse and disputes,

• Issues change to customers in the form of reusable cash cards,

• Issues and accepts all types of tickets and passes--each bus becomes a full service sales outlet capable of selling high value monthly and weekly tickets,

• Eliminates the printing, handling, security and disposal costs of plain paper tickets,

• High coercivity magnetic encoding protects against fraud and card damage,

• Quickly and clearly prints expiration and value information on the ticket, and

• Operation is fully integrated with The Smart Box™ Validating Farebox.
  

Based upon components used for ticketing on tens of thousands of buses in all parts of the world, The Smart Box™ Magnetic Ticket Unit is built to perform well in the challenging environment of mass transit. Its straight-through ticket transport design prevents ticket handling problems and allows high levels of dependability.

Transfers: The Smart Box™ Magnetic Ticket Unit can dramatically lower costs of handling transfers as well as greatly reduce the amount of transfer fraud. Transfers are issued with a pre-set validity period and they can be limited through rules-based transfer policies to allow only transfers in a particular direction and to allow or disallow transfers to particular route numbers. As passengers insert their transfers, audible and visual indicators advise both the passenger and the driver of the validity of the transfer.

Cash Cards: One of the most frequent complaints of passengers is the unavailability of change for fare purchases. The Smart Box™ Magnetic Ticket Unit in combination with The Smart Box™ Validating Farebox can issue "cash cards" in the amount of overpayment. A cash card can be used the next time by the passenger for the payment of a fare, or at the option of the transit agency, exchanged for a cash refund at a central office. The value of the cash card is printed as well as magnetically encoded and is updated after each use.

Period Passes: Monthly/weekly/daily passes of various types have been issued for many years. However, market penetration has typically been limited by a lack of flexibility and a limited number of sales outlets. The Smart Box™ Magnetic Ticket Unit offers the ability to convert each bus into a full service sales outlet capable of selling any type of magnetic ticket or pass. Both calendar month and 30/31 day "rolling month" passes can be issued.

Other Tickets or Passes: Most transit agencies have issued and accepted a wide array of printed tickets and passes. Printing, distributing and accounting for these passes is expensive and time consuming. With The Smart Box™ Magnetic Ticket Unit, virtually all can be issued as magnetic documents and printed on demand in small quantities. Custom-printed magnetic tickets, even pre-encoded tickets, can be purchased for a few cents apiece from multiple sources. Reductions in printing costs alone can easily cost justify The Smart Box™ Magnetic Ticket Unit.

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Revised: January 01, 2000