The Rapid

The Interurban Transit Partnership (ITP) or “The Rapid” is the public transportation system serving the six municipalities in the greater Grand Rapids metro area. INIT's execution of an account-based smart card and mobile ticketing solution on The Rapid's fixed-route lines has improved the agency's service offerings and made boarding times much quicker. 

To manage the back-end processing and clearing of revenues, The Rapid utilizes INIT’s MOBILEvario software solution. This all-inclusive clearing-house system provides a powerful online fare validation server and management tool that delivers seamless administration of  customer relations, setting of fare rules, revenue processing and statistical evaluation reporting.

As part of the project, integration with The Rapid‘s existing third party vendors including current providers of their sales outlet terminals, platform validators, fareboxes, and bus-based AVL mobile data terminals was performed by INIT.

The Rapid provides over 12 million rides annually and was twice named the Outstanding Public Transportation System in North America.

Scope of the project

150

buses

23

routes

Customers are extremely happy with quicker boarding times and ease of use. They no longer have to pre-pay for a pass they may not use. they earn a pass as they go.

Marie Tubergen

The Rapid’s IT Project Manager

Project at a glance

  • Regional account-based electronic fare collection system
  • Real-time fare validators
  • Open APIs for integration with 3rd parties
  • Supports all fare media including open payments (for planned Open Payments phase-in)
  • Future use of contactless (NFC) validation
  • Revenue recognition and sharing software
  • Consumer and institutional support web pages
  • Web-based statistics software for analysis and reporting of fare collection, ridership and other information

Contact

INIT Innovations in Transportation Inc.

424 Network Station
Chesapeake, VA 23320
USA
Phone: +1 757 413 9100
Fax: +1 757 413 5019