UTFS Fare Media Committee

Henry Rosen (Chair), PATH

Ed Pollan, LTK Consulting

Walt Bonneau, 3PCI

Rick Stern, Booz-Allen & Hamilton

Lisa Bucci, Scheidt & Bachmann

Sean Ricketson, FTA

Bob Murray, BART

Dave Phelps, APTA

Jim Ortner, OCTA

Tom Peacock, APTA

Alex Pi, Scheidt & Bachmann

Tim Weisenberger, Volpe

Goals and Objectives:

• Rail CEO Committee meeting report out
• Update on some administrative issues
  • IP Policy
  • Program organization
  • Web site
  • Tech assist
• Report work status from group leaders.
• Begin approval process for "Trends" document

Henry Rosen stated that the goals of the call were to update the committee on the results of the Rail CEOs Committee meeting on Sep 28, some administrative issues (IP Policy, Program organization, web site, and tech assist approach), to have the 3 work groups give reports and to begin the final approval process for the Trends in Electronic fare Media Technology document.

The IP policy Task Force ballot was kept open due to slow receipt of ballots. Once all ballots received, a comment resolution form will be distributed to voters to finalize policy.

The Rail CEOs, at their Sep 28 meeting, approved the use of the policy on an interim basis if votes will be affirmative.

One negative vote with comment was received. APTA has sent a response and is confident the commenting organization will be satisfied.

Dave is finalizing "IP 101" training for all committee/work group leaders.

Letters of Acknowledgement will be distributed to all Task Force members to sign stipulating their willingness to abide by the policy.

Dave stated that the Task Force balloting group is currently balloting the policy, however those ballots were returning slowly. The ballot period was kept open to gain sufficient ballots (original deadline was Sep 26).

The policy was presented to the Rail CEOs Steering Committee on Sep 28 and at they approved the use of the policy on an interim basis given that ballots were anticipated to be affirmative. Dave stated at the time that he did anticipate this. Subsequently one negative vote with comments was received. APTA has drafted a response to this organization's comments. APTA in confident that it can satisfy the organization regarding their comments.

Dave stated that he is finalizing a "IP 101" training package for the use of various committee and group leaders to implement the IP Policy. Additionally, letters of acknowledgement of the policy will be distributed electronically to all task force member organizations. He anticipated this implementation package to be final in 2-3 days and submitted to the Task Force Leadership for approval prior to distribution.

Lisa Bucci asked when a comment resolution form will be distributed. Dave replied that not until the ballot period was closed. APTA will contact balloting organizations to encourage a more prompt return of ballots.

Work Group Reports:

Magnetic Fare Media Work Group- Bob Murray

The work group has three separate documents it is working on:

1. Ticket Specification Document
2. Test Document
3. Magnetic Ticket Data

Bob stated he needs more reviewers and contributors and specifically needs an expert on printing inks.

Procedural Work Group- Ed Pollen

Comments to Procurement Procedures Document have been received.

Research Work Group- Discussion of the Trends in Electronic Fare Media Technology document

The group will remain on hold until informed of the procedure for final resolution of comments.

Tim must engage APTA Staff to determine a plan for document upkeep.

The Work Group has made no progress in the last few months due to a lack of availability on the part of participants. Bob is splitting his time between WP1 and WP4 and is actively trying to transition the group lead to Robert Reavis of BART. He expects the group, and Robert, will be up and running within 30 days.

Bob stated the groups priorities are:

1. The ticket specification- right now this is more of a guideline not a spec.
2. The testing document- Traci Rozier of CTA has done a great job on the document to date, however it must be modified after the completion of the specification.
3. Data Elements document- this must be coordinated with work of the WP1 and WP4 teams.

Ed Pollan asked if there were 3 documents. Bob responded that there were 4 documents:

1. Ticket Specification
2. "How to" guide for reading and writing to magnetic tickets
3. Data Elements document
4. Testing document

Some sample issues that must be addressed are the number of tracks and the coercivity needed.

Ed Pollan stated that the Work Group is working on incorporating comments to the Procurement Procedures document. Anita Wolf is taking the lead on comment resolution. Paula Faust provided much of the baseline for the document. The work group will be meeting on 10/29 and Ed expects a revised document to be completed soon.

The group discussion turned to the "Trends" document. Tim and Henry stated the desire to begin the final review process and bring the document to an approval vote in the Work Group.

Tim stated that the comment resolution form had been distributed early in the month and that the form and the document were posted on the Research Work Group web page. Tim stated that all comments that stated a discrete suggested change were implemented. Only more vague, or high-level comments with no suggested change were not implemented. Walt Bonneau concurred. Tim asked if there were any further comments regarding the document or the resolution of previous comments received. No comments were offered. Tim then suggested to Henry that the group move to a final approval ballot. Henry concurred.

Comments were inserted when there was a rewording stated. Those comments that were not included in the document were those that didn’t provide a proposed fix. For example, those comments that stated that it is inappropriate to include materials from contributors were not inserted. Walt stated that it is common to give contributors credit for their submissions in the final document.

Walt stated that there were several oversights in including comments and that these oversights were corrected in Ver 1.3.2. This document was submitted for distribution. The group is on hold until final resolution of comments.

Ed Pollan asked to discuss the issue of references more broadly. He asked if best practices should note contributors. Walt stated that this is the case in other standards bodies and even non-standards bodies. Ed asked for clarification of different references:

1. Those entities that authored the document
2. Those references that merely reference a source.

Walt stated that acknowledgements are stated because those entities authored the document. It was noted that this issue would be discussed with APTA and the Task Force leadership.

Walt asked what the next steps are for the document approval. Tim stated that the comments must be fully resolved. Joe spoke about the post-issuance steps and asked Walt his view about document updates. Walt stated that he believed an annual update was necessary for the document to keep its value. A question for APTA was raised on this point: Should the document update plan be stated in a preamble to the document? Tim will follow up with APTA on this.

Research Work Group- Discussion of the Trends in Electronic Fare Media Technology document

Tim stated that comment resolution form was distributed early in the month and that the document and form are posted on the Research WG web page.

No comments to the document were offered.

Discussion of the voter eligibility achieved no resolution on the call. Points raised were:

• The by-laws state that eligibility to vote requires attendance at two consecutive meetings.
• Dave P. stated that the by-laws only cover the Task Force level and committees and below can vote to modify the eligibility requirements
• Ed suggested that not all committee members attend the committee calls, instead relying their Work Group leaders to report to them. This on committee meeting activities.
• Concern was expressed over the small voter pool for this document and that this didn’t hold true to the consensus-driven nature of the program.
• The document was perceived as having a short-term usable life.
• The document is a research/white paper.
• It was suggested that standard document types be codified and sent out with deliverables.

Henry R., Joe S., Tim W., and Dave P. will work off-line to determine an approach and present it at the 10/29 TF Leadership meeting for endorsement. The plan will then be distributed to the group and discussed on the next Fare Media teleconference.

Dave P. will create "boilerplate" paragraphs for each type of document.

The group discussion turned to the "Trends" document. Tim and Henry stated the desire to begin the final review process and bring the document to an approval vote in the Work Group.

Tim stated that the comment resolution form had been distributed early in the month and that the form and the document were posted on the Research Work Group web page. Tim stated that all comments that stated a discrete suggested change were implemented. Only more vague, or high-level comments with no suggested change were not implemented. Walt Bonneau concurred. Tim asked if there were any further comments regarding the document or the resolution of previous comments received. No comments were offered. Tim then suggested to Henry that the group move to a final approval ballot. Henry concurred.

Discussion commenced regarding voter eligibility. Various points were made. The program by-laws state that "If an organization is not represented at two

consecutive Task Force meetings, that organization shall lose its vote until that organization participates in two consecutive meetings." Tim stated that if this requirement is enforced only 4 organizations will be eligible to vote to approve the document: BART, PATH, S&B, and 3PCI. This small voting pool was of concern to some on the call.

Ed suggested that not all committee members attend the committee calls, instead relying on their Work Group leader to report out on the meetings. This didn’t seem fair to eliminate them from voting. Tim pointed out that those on the committee distribution list get all meeting minutes and agendas and so can be well informed even without regular attendance.

Additional comments were that the document has a short term "shelf life" and the clock was ticking on this and that this document is merely a white paper/report and not a guideline. Discussion ensued to whether this was true. Lisa Bucci suggested that the audience for the document would perceive it to be a guideline, given the import of the UTFS program. Several others stated that it is clear this was a research/white paper. It was determined to be such when developing the deliverable requirement and that the document itself does not provide any guidance, just information. Alex P. suggested that the various document types be codified and sent out along with deliverables for review that states the type of document it is. Dave P. stated this was a good suggestion and he would develop the definitions of the document types the program can develop. They are:

1. Standard
2. Guidelines/Best Practices
3. Specification
4. White Paper

The next item of discussion was who determined that the committee could provide final approval of the document. It was discussed that the committee asked the Task Force leadership to allow this approach, given that the document is a research/white paper. The Task Force leadership approved this, but the committee decided to distribute the document to the entire task force for comment, not just the Fare media Committee.