{"id":1833,"date":"2016-07-19T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T07:00:15","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-07-03T11:46:48","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T18:46:48","slug":"microsoft-and-accenture-deliver-high-performance-to-transit-riders-and-authorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/industry\/blog\/government\/2016\/07\/19\/microsoft-and-accenture-deliver-high-performance-to-transit-riders-and-authorities\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft and Accenture deliver high performance to transit riders and authorities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Big-city commuters who regularly ride the bus, light rail or subway may never think about the technology that makes their metro card or pass work. Fortunately, Microsoft CityNext<\/a> and Accenture Transportation<\/a> have given a lot of thought to an integrated fare management system that makes it easy for riders to move seamlessly through multiple transit authorities, manage one account online or via their mobile device, and have confidence that applicable fares and discounts will be applied. For transit authorities, the Accenture Fare Management Solution<\/a> (AFMS) delivers reliability, scalability, flexibility and lower cost\u2014truly a win-win for both citizens and local governments.<\/p>\n

AFMS is deployed in some of the largest cities in the world. For example, PRESTO<\/a> is a multi-vendor, multi-operator, regional automated fare collection system, built on open architecture and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, enabling customers of the participating Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) transit providers and Ottawa to pay for and use transit in multiple modes (e.g., trains, subways, buses).\u00a0Over 8,000 in-field devices have been installed in vehicles and sites, with substantial increases to come.\u00a0PRESTO has transformed the customer experience by enabling new products, services and channels for riders to pay for and use transit.<\/p>\n

Michael Wilson, Accenture\u2019s managing director of Transportation for North America, attributes the AFMS success to the strong Microsoft-Accenture partnership. \u201cThe Accenture Fare Management Solution helps deliver the flexible, modern payment system that customers really want,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s uniquely positioned and helping change the industry and how it approaches technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

He notes that many large cities\u2014including Boston, New York, San Francisco and Seattle\u2014share a similar challenge as they look to replace existing fare management systems: \u201cAll of these cities have multiple transit authorities\u2014this is a common theme we\u2019re seeing in large city regions.\u201d AFMS has effectively addressed regional coordination and crossing multiple municipal boundaries in The Netherlands, which has 15 transit agencies covering the entire country. The same is true with PRESTO, which serves 11 provincial and municipal transit agencies and 6.5 million residents\u2014the third largest region in North America, behind New York and Mexico City.<\/p>\n

In addition to enabling customers to easily travel across multiple transit agencies with one electronic fare card, transit officials like the fact that AFMS is built on commercially available software, including Microsoft Azure<\/a>, Dynamics AX<\/a> and BizTalk<\/a>. \u201cIt gives the transit agencies an alternative to the proprietary products of the past, which limited their ability to innovate and competitively integrate multiple device vendors,\u201d Michael said. Other benefits include:<\/p>\n