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November 21, 2008
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APTA > About APTA > APTA Committees > Universal Transit Farecard Standards (UTFS) Task Force > (UTFS) Financial Management Systems Work Groups  

Financial Management Committee Systems Work Group

UTFS Work Package 4 Face to Face Meeting

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

Wednesday March 24 at 12:00 noon Eastern Time

One Madison Ave., 7th Floor Conference Room # 154

Participants:

Nathesh Manikoth

ACS

Barney Louie

BART

Al Chan

Booz Allen

Levent Eyuboglu

Booz Allen

Chung Chung Tam

CTA

Darshana Patel

CTA

David Faust

CTA

Karim Aboud

CTA

Brian Monk

Cubic

David de Kozan

Cubic

David McIlwraith

ERG

Richard Jack

ERG

Kevin Krest

G&D

Cynthia Chin-Pak

LACMTA

Mauro Arteaga

LACMTA

Michael Sprague

PANYNJ

Rick Barrett

Quattran

Alexander Pi

S&B

Lisa Bucci

S&B

Dave Andrews

Three Point Consulting

Walt Bonneau

Three Point Consulting

Leisa Moniz

Volpe

Tim Weisenberger

Volpe

Ed Barnette

WMATA

Greg Garback

WMATA

  1. Meeting Commencement
  • The meeting started at 12:30pm, and a role call was performed. All members in the above attendance list were present.
  1. Functional Description Document - Scope statement
  • The draft scope section was reviewed. The general approach was accepted, with some modifications to the wording for clarification. See draft version 12 for updated version.
  1. Functional Description Document - Security section
  • Although Alexander Pi had provided some material from Work Package 3, the work in that group is still in the early stages. Consequently, Dave Andrews and Richard Jack offered to review their respective security approaches (from the RIS and from ERG) with the view of providing material for this section of the document. Alexander Pi would take this material, along with any developments from WP3, and produce a draft description for this document.

ACTION: Provide appropriate material to Alexander Pi for consideration – Richard Jack (ERG)/Dave Andrews (PANYNJ)

  1. Functional Description Document - Peer to Peer description
  • The peer to peer transaction descriptions, along with the additional message types, provided by Tony Benson were discussed. Michael Sprague was of the opinion that peer to peer should not be considered for the standard due to the complexity introduced with multiple participants. David de Kozan agreed that it was not applicable for a regional scheme with multiple participants (i.e. transit operators), but that it did fulfill a need in the following circumstances:
    • A small regional scheme (two or three operators) where the participants wanted to perform peer to peer settlement rather than invest in a central system.
    • Two existing regional schemes that wanted to use peer to peer settlement to allow use of their cards in the other region’s scheme.
  • It was agreed that the interface specification should aim to accommodate peer to peer messages to suit these situations. Furthermore, it was agreed that the specification for a central system approach should already provide the necessary messages to allow a peer to peer system to be implemented, without the need for additional or specific peer to peer messages.
  • A review of the current message descriptions is required to ensure i) peer to peer messages, as currently described, can be consolidated into the general messages and ii) the current message descriptions properly cover all situations required by either a central system or peer to peer system approach. This review would be completed in two weeks.

ACTION: Perform review of message description table for completeness and applicability to central and peer to peer systems – Darshana Patel (CTA)/Brian Monk (Cubic)/Richard Jack (ERG)/Cynthia Chin-Pak (LACMTA)/Dave Andrews (PANYNJ)/Alexander Pi (S&B)

  • A number of new terms were introduced the materials provided by Tony. A review of terms applicable to a peer to peer system is required, and recommendations made to the group for terms to be considered for addition to the glossary.

ACTION: Present new terms required to describe peer to peer for consideration – Brian Monk

  1. Functional Description Document - Participants description
  • The key participants section was reviewed. It was agreed that these terms should also appear in the master glossary, being maintained by Tim Weisenberger. However, since the understanding of the document required knowledge of the key participants, it was agreed that the definitions should also remain in this document.
  • The terms ‘Application Issuer’, ‘Clearing and Settlement Entity’ and ‘Transit Scheme Administrator’ were added. Definitions were not completed for these. The terms ‘Card Owner’ and ‘Product Owner’ were removed.

ACTION: Complete definitions for new terms – David McIlwraith

  • It was agreed that a definition for ‘regional’ should be added to the master glossary, even though it is not required in this document.

ACTION: Add definition for ‘regional’ to master glossary – Tim Weisenberger

  1. Functional Description Document - Data flow diagram approach
  • A method for illustrating the flow of messages described in the message table was provided by Natesh Manikoth. The approach was generally accepted. Dave Andrews offered to share material from the RIS Part 4 Planning Guide for consideration as well.

ACTION: Provide example diagrams from RIS – Dave Andrews

ACTION: Complete diagrams for each message type – Natesh Manikoth/David McIlwraith

  1. Functional Description Document - Card lifecycle description
  • A card lifecycle diagram, illustrating the steps from card manufacturing to card issuance, was provided by Kevin Krest. Some modifications were made to the application issuance/card issuance step. It was agreed that ‘card update’ and ‘card termination’ steps be added.

ACTION: Add card update and card termination steps – Kevin Krest

  1. Update on consultant project
  • Booz Allen provided a brief update on progress to date. The presentation is attached to these minutes.
  • Progress has been impeded by the need to get APTA to provide a letter requesting material from 3rd parties, with the necessary language to limit distribution and use. It was agreed that Booz Allen should provide a draft letter to APTA (via Volpe) for consideration.

ACTION: Provide draft letter to APTA for request of materials – Al Chan/Tim Weisenberger

  • The work remaining on the project was approximately 4 weeks, but needed to be confirmed.

ACTION: Provide updated schedule for completion of report – Al Chan

  • Lisa Bucci of S&B stated that until all WP4 participants have signed IP Policy Letters of Acknowledgement in which they agree not to misuse information obtained through UTFS for their own advantage, UTFS should not receive any documents, which are not already in the public domain (ie. the WMATA document).  Because UTFS is still lacking an IP Policy, progress is impeded.
  1. Schedule
  • It was agreed that a face to face meeting should be held shortly to perform a final review of the document and ballot for release as a draft. The Cardtech/Securtech conference is being held April 26-28. A date of Thursday, 29 April in the afternoon was tentatively agreed to, subject to consultation with WP1 and WP3.

ACTION: Find out what WP1 and WP3 are planning – David McIlwraith

  1. Next Meeting
  • The next conference call will be held Wednesday, March 31 at 12 noon, EST. Call in numbers are (866) 687-3615 (USA/Canada) or (210) 453-6803 (international) , pass code 112438.

The meeting closed at 5:30pm.

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