Unlocking SEPTA key : an analysis of the decisions leading to a new fare medium

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is the sixth largest transit agency in the United States, serving 358 million passengers annually (APTA, 2015). Despite its size, SEPTA is the last major transportation agency to change their fare medium from tokens to contactless fare cards. Although the implementation is not currently complete for the Philadelphia metropolitan area (as of May 2017), the ten-year process provides information for the decisions made that led to delays. This thesis considers the decisions that SEPTA made during the implementation timeline by exploring the process through a public administration decision-making lens. Although a transit project of this size should expect some delays, they were prolonged due to funding difficulties, scope creep, technology obsolescence, bureaucratic inertia, technical issues, a lack of champion, unclear goals for implementation, and a risk averse nature enhanced by difficulties experienced by the Chicago Transit Authority. As the implementation enters the next phase, SEPTA should continue being transparent and explicit in announcing the delays for the system. There is a beneficial tradeoff of ensuring the tested marginal enhancement functions as expected with minimizing public disappointment and backlash.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Jacome, Angel

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ezra Haber Glenn.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111395

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/111395