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Agenda Item # 10

  Date: November 3, 2003
  Committee Meeting Date: November 20, 2003
  Board Meeting Date: December 4, 2003
  ACTION    X      DISCUSSION   ___ INFO   ___

BOARD MEMORANDUM

TO: Administration and Finance Committee
 Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
 Board of Directors
  
THROUGH:Peter M. Cipolla
 General Manager
  
FROM:Scott Buhrer
 Chief Financial Officer
  
SUBJECT: BART Plus Ticket Program Agreement

RECOMMENDATION:

Authorize the General Manager to execute an agreement to extend the BART Plus multi-agency ticket program in cooperation with BART and seven other Bay Area transit agencies. 

BACKGROUND: 

The BART Plus program began in April, 1991 and could be considered a predecessor of the current TransLink initiative.   Purpose of the program is to facilitate fare payment by transit riders who are using local bus systems to access BART, or vice versa.

Each month, BART Plus offers a special series of BART tickets encoded with fixed amounts of BART ticket value.  Each BART Plus ticket is honored as a flash pass on board seven bus operators for a half-month period.  There are A versions of the tickets for the first half of the month and B versions of the tickets for the second half of the month.   For trips on BART, the BART Plus tickets each store value. The amount of the stored value is reduced for each trip taken during the half-month period and for five days after the end of the period, at which time the remaining BART stored value, if any, expires. 

Pricing of BART Plus tickets is based on a varying dollar amount for BART (based on the amount of BART stored value encoded on the ticket) plus a fixed additional dollar amount that is shared among the bus operators.  Since 1994, the bus operator share has been fixed at $14.00 per ticket (or $28.00 per month).  Bus operator revenues are allocated among the bus operators based on a survey completed in the early years of the program. 

Besides VTA, other bus operators currently participating in BART Plus include Samtrans, San Francisco Muni, Union City Transit, Central Contra Costa Transit Authority, Eastern Contra Costa Transit Authority, Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority, and the Dumbarton Bridge Service Consortium (which includes VTA).  

DISCUSSION: 

The most recent BART Plus program agreement formally expired June 30, 1997 and has continued informally since.  The program continued in operation uneventfully until earlier this year when the bus operators determined that a new agreement would be necessary for several reasons:  (1) to put the program back on a solid legal footing, (2) to provide for an increase in the bus share of revenues which had been frozen since 1994, and (3) to address the winding down of BART Plus as TransLink is implemented. 

Through a series of meetings this year, representatives of BART and the bus operators have met and negotiated a new BART Plus agreement.   Significant differences between the currently proposed agreement and the 1994 agreement include the following:

  1. The bus share of ticket prices will increase from $14.00 per ticket ($28.00 per month) to $24.00 per ticket ($48.00 per month).
  2. Ticket sales will be primarily through an expanded BART ticket vending machine network and through various employer transit subsidy programs.   Retail consignment sales will be discontinued due to low volume and high costs, and considering expanded ticket availability through BART vending machines.   
  3. The proposed agreement is intended to carry the program until the time when TransLink is fully implemented, at which time BART Plus is expected to be discontinued.  The proposed agreement has an initial term through December 2005, with the possibility of up to three one-year extensions.
  4. The participating bus operators and BART agree to share the one-time costs of reprogramming BART equipment to enable new BART Plus pricing.   The bus operators share of these costs will be prorated on the same basis as revenues are allocated and will be deducted from the first revenue allocation under the new agreement.    
  5. AC Transit is no longer a participant in BART Plus since their Board adopted fare changes of September 1, 2003. 
  6. As approved in VTAs August 1, 2003 fare change, VTA will honor BART Plus for base fare credit on all of our services, and a surcharge will be required on Express bus services.  This policy is consistent with how other bus operators treat BART Plus.    

The effective date for new ticket pricing under the proposed agreement is targeted to be February 1, 2004, but this data may change based on when BART completes equipment preparation for vending and acceptance of the new BART Plus ticket values.

ALTERNATIVES:

  VTA could choose not to participate in the renewal and extension of the BART Plus program. 

FISCAL IMPACT: 

VTAs share of BART Plus revenues is less than 2% of revenues allocated to the bus operators.  For the quarter ended June 30, VTA received $11,815 from the BART Plus program.  Overall BART Plus ticket sales have declined significantly since AC Transit dropped out -- to about 10,000 tickets monthly for the entire program.  With the revised pricing in the new agreement, we estimate that the VTA allocation would be $4,500 to $5,000 per month.

 

Prepared by: David Sausjord
  

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