(The following article by Joe Malinconico was posted on the Star-Ledger website on April 28.)
NEWARK, N.J. — Most times, the 545 ticket vending machines that dispense tickets for NJ Transit’s trains, buses, light rail lines and subways seem just fine.
Sure, maybe the contraptions are a little slow at processing credit card purchases and printing the tickets.
From Our Advertiser
But usually it’s no big deal — unless someone is making a last-second purchase as a train is pulling into the station. Then the machines’ slow pace can be unnerving.
Calling the ticket dispensers obsolete and unreliable, NJ Transit officials yesterday approved a $10.9 million maintenance contract with Ascom Transport Systems of Norcross, Ga., that would include several short-term improvements.
Over the next year, the agency is going to install quicker printers in the machines capable of producing tickets 13 times quicker than the current ones are. It also will replace the credit-card dial-up system with faster DSL, or digital subscriber lines.
“Purchasing tickets using a TVM (ticket vending machine) should not be a challenge for our customers,” said NJ Transit’s Executive Director George Warrington. “It should be effortless.”
The new printers, which cost $3,100 apiece, already have been installed in the 181 machines at the agency’s light rail and subway stations and the 40 bus ticket machines.
The agency also is going to devise a plan by next March on whether to buy all new machines or to refit the ones it already has. The current machines, which have an average age of about 6.5 years, cost $56,000 each, including installation, officials said.
At Newark Penn Station yesterday afternoon, Jo Thompson of Newark was having trouble with a ticket machine that would complete her credit card transaction, with the message screen telling her: “Coins and bills only at this time.”
Thompson paid with cash and said it was a good idea for NJ Transit to improve the machines. But she had one concern.
“Does that mean the prices are going up?” she asked.
She was glad to hear that NJ Transit has no plans to increase its fares.
Other rail riders were satisfied with the current machines, preferring them to ticket agents.
“They work great, the less I have to deal with rude people the better,” said William Stoffel of Jersey City.
“I think they’re excellent,” said Bruce Levy of Middletown. “You don’t have to wait in line for the tellers.”
Not everybody is a fan of the vending machines.
“I don’t use them anymore,” said Vincent DeMarco of Monmouth Beach. “One time I didn’t get my ticket and the machine wouldn’t give me my money back.”
In addition to the new contract on the ticket machines, NJ Transit yesterday approved a $285,930 contract with MGD Enterprises of Edison to provide customer service training to 1,650 employees, including 1,350 train crew members and 150 ticket agents.