Office of Operations
21st Century Operations Using 21st Century Technologies
Table of Contents

Sound Transit ATCMTD Application Volume 1 - Technical Application

10. VISION, GOALS, AND OBJECTIVES FOR THE PROJECT - NEXT GEN ORCA VISION.

The ORCA Steering Committee has adopted the follow Vision Statement: "A flexible and secure system offering customers convenient transportation payment options." Indicators of success include:

  • Delivery of a stable, secure and cost-efficient system
  • A system that will scale and evolve as technology, agency and customer needs change
  • Delivery of major scope items in the fully-launched customer environment by 2021
  • Achievement of customer satisfaction throughout the transition
  • Eventual increased adoption of electronic fare payment
  • Completion within the approved budget
  • Satisfaction of the operating agencies
  • Low equipment Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
  • High backend availability and system up-time (99.99% or better)

Program Goals & Objectives

Improve customer experience

  • Programs for unbanked/underbanked -- create programs that make it easier for customers without banking relationships to use ORCA to purchase tickets, take advantage of ride discounts and participate fully in any services ORCA may offer.
  • Business and institutional programs--continue to provide programs that cater to the needs of local businesses.
  • Instantaneous availability of loaded value--increase customer satisfaction by eliminating the waiting period for value added to the ORCA cards

Increase ORCA usage

  • All modes--make ORCA easily usable on all modes of transport
  • Market penetration--make ORCA available through as many venues as possible in addition to the current retail network and ticket machines

Fiscal responsibility

  • Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)--ensure that the new system is cost-effective to implement and efficient to operate
  • Lower upgrade and improvement cost--increase use of state-of-the-art technology to create efficiencies and design a system that is modular enough to be easily upgraded

Operational efficiency

  • Roll out new functionality and upgrades faster--use technology and administration to enable the region to quickly assess and pilot new technology features and implement them efficiently
  • Make data easier to access for agencies and public--allow agencies to find, analyze and report information easily

Additional strategic objectives include:

  • Provide effective security to meet industry compliance for both customer and system data
  • Be an expandable, open architecture system that’s able to adapt and evolve
  • Allow for acceptance of multiple fare media types
Office of Operations