Metro News Release

For immediate release: May 19, 2005

More SmarTrip vending machines coming to Metrorail stations

Riding Metrorail and parking at Metro lots is soon going to get faster and easier for people who use their SmarTrip cards.

Metro officials are planning to add 98 machines that accept SmarTrip transactions within the next year to handle the increased demand for the vending machine that can add fare to the rechargeable farecards.

Metro staff told its Board of Directors today that customers are using their credit and debit cards at SmarTrip vending machines more than 15,000 times per day. When the SmarTrip vending machines were first installed in Metrorail stations in 1999, electronic transactions were made at a rate of 38,447 per month. In March 2005, that total had increased more than tenfold to 467,486 transactions per month, resulting in long lines at the fare vending machines.

Metro is going to add the SmarTrip card option to 98 of its farecard machines (43 immediately and 55 more within another year) to reduce the lines for adding fare and for downloading SmartBenefits onto the cards. The conversion of paper-only farecard machines to one that offers both options of SmarTrip cards and paper farecards increases the availability of credit and debit fare processing equipment in stations by 39 percent (from 252 to 350 machines).

Transit authority officials informed the Board that the additional machines will benefit daily riders and parkers as well as tourists and occasional users of the system. Demand for the SmarTrip cards and the vending machines that are used to add fare to the cards has increased dramatically since Metro began accepting SmarTrip cards as the only form of payment for parking in its lots last year.

The $3.5 million for the additional equipment will come from the existing fare collection budget to improve service to customers.

News release issued on May 19, 2005.