Salem Area Mass Transit District (SAMTD), is seeking a contractor to replace and streamline its farebox system. SAMTD will utilize FTA 5307 funding for this acquisition, therefore Federal Terms and Conditions (Appendix C) will govern the contract. In an effort to encourage competition as well as ensure that SAMTD accurately outlined the project goals and expectations, SAMTD does not publish individual project budgets. Currently, fare collection on the Fixed Route fleet is performed through GenFare Odyssey fareboxes that accept cash payments, leading to inefficiencies and increased maintenance costs. SAMTD’s Paratransit fleet consists of Diamond fareboxes. The operations and maintenance departments are responsible for fare collection and system upkeep. The current farebox systems are time-consuming, prone to errors, and require significant manual intervention, resulting in higher operational costs and reduced efficiency. Data reporting is very cumbersome and time consuming. Before reports can be pulled, the data must undergo a line-by-line manual validation process. This requires a staff member to spend approximately two (2) to four (4) hours a day combing the data line-by-line looking for and correcting errors. Because the process requires human manipulation, the probability of errors occurring is significant. Functionality of the fareboxes sees failures of internal components daily requiring troubleshooting and component replacement while vehicles are in service.
