PATCO debuts ‘smart card’ for High-Speed Line

Bonnie Burrell held the future in one hand and the past in the other.

"I'm not going to have to fumble for coins anymore," she said, displaying a fistful of silver in her right hand. "This," she said, waving a yellow card in her left, "is going to be very simple."

Burrell, a health aide who travels from Philadelphia to Marlton every day, was one of the first people Monday to get PATCO's new "smart card," the first of its kind in the region.

The stored-value card, with an embedded computer chip, is designed to do away with the magnetic-strip plastic tickets that PATCO High-Speed Line riders have used for 38 years.

They were issued Monday at the Broadway station in Camden, and PATCO representatives will soon begin distributing them at other stations on both sides of the Delaware River. The $13 million system was delayed nearly a year by software glitches.

Passengers will be able to get through new turnstiles by waving the credit-card-size "Freedom" card at a sensor that will deduct the fare automatically.

The Freedom card, which can be reloaded with cash or by credit card, also will work in PATCO parking lots.

The system is similar to ones in Washington, Boston, Atlanta and other cities.

SEPTA and NJ Transit are largely waiting to see what technologies prevail. With a full-fledged smart-card system costing as much as $100 million, agencies may find it much cheaper to let the credit-card industry develop a smart credit card that pays for passage on their buses and trains.

SEPTA hopes to have a new fare system ready in three or four years, transit officials have said. One challenge is that many SEPTA riders don't have credit cards, so any system would need to accept cash, too.

All PATCO stations in Center City and South Jersey have at least one turnstile that now accepts Freedom cards, and stations are to be fully converted to the system by the end of February. As stations along the 14-mile line between Philadelphia and Lindenwold are converted, existing magnetic-strip fare cards will be phased out.

For occasional riders or those who do not want to get a smart card, PATCO will sell magnetic-strip paper tickets at vending machines in stations. Those one-way or round-trip tickets will be valid only for three days from the date of purchase.

The first stations to be fully converted to the new system will be Broadway and City Hall in Camden, by Dec. 7, PATCO officials said today.

They will be followed by Eighth and Market station (north), by Dec. 14; 16th and Locust station (east) by Dec. 19; Ferry Avenue station by Jan. 4; Westmont, by Jan. 10; Collingswood station by Jan. 15; Haddonfield station by Jan. 18; 15th and Locust station by Jan. 24; Ashland station by Jan. 31; Woodcrest by Feb. 7; Lindenwold by Feb. 14, Eighth and Market station (south) by Feb. 20; 16th and Locust station (west) by Feb. 25, and 13th and Locust by Feb. 28.

"I think it's going to be great," said Virginia Putnam, of Audubon, who travels from the Ferry Avenue station to 16th and Locust in Center City for her job as a pension specialist.

"They're supposed to work through your wallet or purse, so you don't have to take the card out," said Trina DeLuca of Sicklerville, who travels daily from Lindenwold to Center City.

Manthan Shah, a lab technician and cancer researcher at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Camden, said he had used a similar system in Washington during his college days and "I had been hoping they'd get something like it here."

"I won't have to buy a ticket every day or every week," Shah said. "It will just be easier."

PATCO officials said passengers could expect lines to form at the new turnstiles, especially at rush hour, until stations are fully converted.

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