Contactless Fare Collection Platform and Supporting Services

The vendor required to provide contactless fare collection platform, at a minimum, shall consist of validators capable of accepting contactless euro-pay Mastercard Visa (EMV) payments, fare calculation software, and mobile ticketing and supporting services.
- Requirements for contactless EMV validators and supporting services
•    EMV level 1, 2, and 3 certified for visa, Mastercard, discover, and AmEx and implements any additional payment scheme transit specific requirements. 
•    Compatible with the mass transit transaction (MTT) deferred authorization framework and equivalent transaction models from the payment schemes. 
•    Compliant with PCI pts v4.0 (or higher). 
•    Supports apple pay, google pay and Samsung pay mobile wallets. 
•    Store taps for at least 96 hours, in case of a communications failure with back-end software.
•    Supports the inclusion and exclusion of specific bin ranges. 
•    Supports initial offline data authentication (ODA) when a card is tapped to check card number formats, expiration date, and deny lists in less than 0.5 seconds. 
•    Supports allow and deny lists, where each entry may contain a (hashed) pan, (hashed) par, or bin and deny list management where:
o    Lost cards can be manually added to the deny list 
o    Lost cards that have been found can be manually removed from the deny list 
o    Card accounts that have a debt are automatically added to the deny list 
o    Card accounts that had a debt that was recovered via automated debt recovery are automatically removed from the deny list 
o    Card accounts that had a debt that was manually recovered by the operator or “tap recovered” by the rider are automatically removed from the deny list
•    Contains an anti-pass back mechanism with a configurable pass back interval such that pass back can be allowed within x seconds of the first tap to enable multi-rider boarding and not allowed within x + y seconds of the first tap to control fraud while optionally allowing multi-rider boarding. 
•    The variable x can be set to low value or zero where multirider boarding is not supported. 
•    Physically durable validator meeting rigorous standards for use in public transit environments and new England climate year-round. 
•    The validator display must be easily visible during sunlight and contain RGB lights to communicate status to customers and operators. 
•    Display shall be scratch and shatter resistant. 
•    Integrate with the transit vehicle’s standard wiring for power and ethernet.
•    Able to scan, interpret, authenticate and validate QR codes that may encode a ticket or an identifier linked to an account.
•    Supports dc power inputs between 9v and 32v. 
•    Mobile inspection device can be used by fare enforcement staff to validate the right to travel of transit customers on-board transit vehicles. 
•    Validators shall have an expected lifetime of at least 5 years in the environmental conditions expected in deployments in state. 
•    The validators must be able to operate in online and offline scenarios and shall have an operational availability of 99.5% over the operational service day. 
•    Contractor to describe their method of measuring and reporting this performance indicator. 
•    Provide a certified installation team acceptable to the transit agency to install validators onboard transit vehicles. 
•    The transit agency reserves the right to handle installation through in-house maintenance personnel. 
•    The contractor shall furnish all materials needed and only bill the agency for the cost of materials. 
•    Supply and install power management units that enable validators to stay in a powered-on state for a period of at least 30 minutes when the bus is powered-off. 
•    This allows for the validators to avoid powering down when the bus is turned off in between trips and allows for any software updates to be performed at the end of each service day.
- Requirements for fare calculation software and supporting services
•    Standard adult base fare (base fare) for the particular service discounted by a fixed amount or percentage such that the base fare discount amount is linked to the rider’s concession eligibility. 
•    The concession is linked to the fare media being used such that the same fare media needs to be used to contribute to the fare cap. 
•    Multi-period capping or multiple caps each capping on a period-basis either based on rolling periods or calendar-based periods. 
•    The longest period for capping shall not be less than 31-days. 
•    Combination of discounts and capping. 
•    For clarity, the fare policy configuration may support a concession for seniors where the standard base fare is discounted and the monthly period cap for the senior concession group is also discounted to a lower value than the standard monthly adult cap. 
•    Multi-agency transfer discounts (including free transfers) and multi-agency fare caps for agencies using validators connected to the same contractor. 
•    Multiagency fare caps can include all statewide agencies to support statewide fare cap pass products. 
•    Different base fares and caps for local services and express services.
- Requirements for mobile ticketing and supporting services
•    A native application that runs on iOS and android and is available in the apple app store and google play store as a free download. 
•    Doesn’t require a user account or sign in to purchase tickets but is optional. 
•    Doesn’t require a user to store a payment method but is optional. 
•    Supports purchasing and validating multiple tickets at the same time on a single device and validating each ticket individually as required by visual or electronic validation. 
•    Provides a simple and intuitive ticket selection interface. 
•    Generates mobile fare product with a QR code to allow validation of fares electronically through a QR code reader, with ability to validate visually. 
•    Contains security features to prevent the use of fraudulent mobile tickets. 
•    Accept payments from visa, Mastercard, American Express and discover payment networks. 
•    Accept payments from non-bank cards, such as the cash app, to meet the needs of unbanked and underbanked customers. 
•    Accept mobile wallet payment options, including but not limited to, apple pay, google pay and Samsung pay mobile wallets. 
•    Customization and personalization features, including unique branding for up to 20 different transit agencies or services in state. 
•    Capable of handling fare structures and agency specific business rules for up to 20 different transit agencies or services in state. 
•    Support transit agency fare capping policies, with the potential to introduce a statewide fare cap that may include fare purchases from multiple transit agencies in state contributing to potential statewide fare cap(s). 
•    Incorporate fare changes and new fare products, as they become available in state
•    Provide back-end dashboards with access to data on usage, ridership, sales and revenue for separate services (“system”). 
•    Regular software updates to the system shall be provided at no cost throughout the term of the contract. 
•    The system shall provide various levels of user access rights that allow and restrict access to various functions.
•    The system shall provide access to an unlimited number of users and feature multiple user access levels with password protection to ensure system settings are secure. 
•    The reporting dashboard shall display ridership statistics including stop location, bus route, block and run, date, time, and GPS coordinates of boardings. 
•    Ability to see sales and transaction data in real-time or near real-time. 
•    Ability to integrate or ingest fare data from current or future cash farebox vendors for transit agencies in state. 
•    The analytics platform should show purchase data from mobile ticketing purchases, purchase data from cash fareboxes, and combined purchase data. 
•    Ability to run sales, usage summary, user statistics, fare transaction statistics, and revenue summary reports. 
•    Ability to set up additional custom reports to meet agency data needs. 
•    Ability to easily export all data for integration with other software systems and tools. 
•    Ability to issue refunds to customers. 
•    Application programming interface (API) for extracting usage data that is free for agency and its designees to access, use, and share.

- Contract Period/Term: 5 years
- Mandatory Pre-Proposals Meeting Date: February 5, 2026
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: February 18, 2026