Universal Transit Farecard Standards (UTFS)Task Force

Agapito Diaz (RMC Chair), ACS

Walter Allen, Accumen

Chung Chung Tam (Fin Mgmt Chair), CTA

Tom Peacock, APTA

Henry Rosen (Fare Media Chair), PATH

Dave Phelps, APTA

Rick Barrett (Fin Mgmt Vice Chair), Quattran

Leisa Moniz, Volpe

Joe Simonetti (Fare Media Vice Chair), Metavante

Tim Weisenberger, Volpe

Ed Pollen (RMC Vice-Chair), LTK

The Business Process Work Group system guidelines document committee ballot closed Oct 24. on the next Committee meeting on Oct 6. The final approval will be by the TF Leadership.

The Systems Work Group’s work package teams report the following:

Work Package 1

• Working on definition of purses
• Face-to-face meeting on November 19 at BART HQ

Work Package 3

• The team met on Oct 27
• Work assignments were made
• Team is focused on delivering a guidelines document that does not cover implementation
• More participation is needed

Work Package 4

• Team is balloting for the 5 hi-level categories of the deliverable
• The team will meet face-to-face on Nov 20 at BART HQ.
• Close date for RFP is Nov 12
• An evaluation committee is set with members of the team, Volpe and APTA.

APTA will develop a one-page boilerplate to be added to each deliverable that contains:

1. The UTFS Mission Statement and Guiding Principals
2. A document type description (Standard, Guideline/Best Practice, Specification, Research/White Paper)

Additionally, all deliverables should reference the IP Policy within their introduction.

Tam provided an update of the Financial Management Committee. He stated that the Business Process Work Group document committee ballot closed on Oct 24. If final vote is in the affirmative, the document will be submitted to the task force leadership for final approval ballot. Current total is 4 affirmative votes.

The Systems Work Group report:.

Work Package 1

The team is in the process of finalizing definitions for various card purses. They are balloting this in the work package. The team has set a face-to-face meeting for November 19 at BART HQ.

Work Package 3

This work package team is focused on end-to-end security of the payment system. They met on Oct 27 and began assigning tasks to workers. They are attempting to develop a set of security guidelines that will NOT cover how to implement security in a system. Additional participation is still needed on this team.

Work Package 4

The team is balloting 5 hi-level categories for the deliverable document:

1. Transaction Data
2. Event data
3. Card Management Data
4. Credit/Debit Data
5. Device Data

Tam requested that an APTA representative be on the next committee call, Mon, Nov 3.

A final comment from Rick was regarding whether the IP Policy must be attached in some way to white paper documents. A member raised this issue. Dave stated that it is unnecessary since a white paper would not contain any IP. The discussion moved to whether it was wise to include a "boilerplate" piece that would be attached to all documents and that described the mission of the program and included the IP Policy. Dave suggested the Mission Statement and Guiding Principals are a good overview of the program’s goals.

The discussion ended with the agreement that the Mission Statement and Guiding Principals, together with a definition of the specific type of document being distributed (Standard, Guideline/best practice, Specification, Research/ White Paper). The IP Policy would be included within the document as applicable

The Fare Media Committee is ready to ballot the "Trends in Electronic Fare Media Technology" document. The balloting group is only 4 members. A plan was formulated to potentially expand this group while maintaining the by-laws rule that an organization must attend 2 consecutive meetings to be eligible to vote.

The plan is:

1. Inform the group that a vote is needed and what the eligibility rule is
2. Inform the committee members that the next Committee meeting is on Nov 12 and a follow-on meeting to discuss the "Trends" document (date currently TBD)
3. This allows those who want to vote to establish eligibility
4. Vote will proceed by electronic ballot thereafter

Procedural Work Group is meeting to resolve comments to their document.

Magnetic Work Group has been on hiatus due to a lack of time available from WG participants. Bob Murray has been unable to transition of the WG because of this. He has not assumed his new role of Systems WG co-leader.

Henry and Tam will work directly with Bob to develop a transition strategy for him.

Henry stated the committee had met on Oct 28. A focus of the committee is final approval of the "Trends in Electronic Fare Media Technology" document. A subject that came up was the eligibility to vote. The by-laws state that an organization must attend 2 consecutive meetings to be eligible to vote. This leaves the committee with 4 eligibility voters: PATH, BART, 3PCI, and S&B. The group felt that a larger voter pool was desired. Henry, feels that since the Fin Mgmt Committee has used the by-laws rule for their committee vote, that Fare Media should as well. Ed P. stated that the committee had discussed that members of work groups may not attend committee calls, instead getting reports from their work group leader. This doesn’t seem fair to not allow them to vote. Leisa Moniz stated that Fin Mgmt Committee made their deliverable an agenda item and included the voter eligibility rule in the email. She suggested that Fare Media do the same and then have a second meeting relatively soon to allow members to establish eligibility prior to the ballot. The group agreed that this was a good plan and Henry and Joe S. directed Tim to implement it.

The Procedural Work Group is meeting in one hour to continue resolution of comments to their deliverable document.

Henry also initiated discussion of the Magnetic Fare Media WG and particularly Bob Murray’s role as leader and also co-leader of the Systems WG. He stated that Bob had reported that the Magnetic group was still on hiatus, and that the reason was participants didn’t have time available. Bob had been trying to transition the WG to Robert Reavis of BART. Henry’s concern was in transitioning Bob to Systems WG and getting Magnetic WG deliverables on track.

Discussion of Bob’s availability ensued and of the fact that his role as Systems WG co-lead was crucial to the new Organization. Tim emphasized that it was not Bob’s availability or workload, but that of the Magnetic WG participants that kept the WG in flux. Tim reiterated that Bob reported that he felt the WG would meet again and begin to finalize the documents within 30 days.

Tam stated that he felt that his committee had not really pushed the inclusion of Bob as co-leader yet because he felt the new organization was not final. Others thought it was. Tim clarified that he had officially announced it to the Fare Media Comm, but the final communication was really to come from Tom Parker and that step never happened. He stated that he would contact Tom and prepare a communication for him that stated the new organization.

The result of the discussion was that Henry and Tam (and other committee leaders as they saw fit) would work directly with Bob to strategize a transition plan for him and the Magnetic WG.

Ballots are returning slowly. APTA will engage voters one-on-one to speed up the return of ballots. A letter would be prepared from Tom Margro, Rail CEO Chair to encourage peers to return ballots.

One negative vote with comment was received. APTA has sent a response and addressed the organizations concerns and anticipates resolution of the comments and that the negative vote will be reversed

"IP 101" training will be submitted to the TF Leadership by COB Nov 3 for review. This training is for all task force leaders to use to implement the policy in their respective groups.

Steps for IP Policy implementation:

1. Inform participants they must submit a Letter of Acknowledgement to continue in the program.
2. As groups are considering if IP is involved, submitting organization must submit a Letter of Acknowledgement identifying all IP in the document.

Dave Phelps stated that the IP Policy ballots are very slow in being returned. Voting entities’ legal staffs have to be engaged and that is taking extra time. Dave anticipates engaging voters one-on-one to speed the casting of their ballots. The group suggested having a communication from Tom Margro, Rail CEO Chair encouraging peers to return ballots. Dave agreed.

Dave stated that one negative vote with comment was received. APTA has sent a response and addressed the organizations concerns. Dave anticipates resolution of the comments and that the negative vote will be reversed. Leisa M. asked if the no vote supersedes the Rail CEO guidance to use the IP Policy on an interim basis. APTA replied that it did not.

Dave stated that he was in the final stages of completing the "IP 101" training for all task force leaders to use to implement the policy in their respective groups. Dave asked the group if he should make the training package completely step by step and risk "insulting peoples’ intelligence". The group agreed that this was not a problem and the training should be as basic as possible.

Tim asked what the next steps for implementation were, specifically, Letters of Acknowledgement, etc. Dave stated that this would be part and parcel of the "IP 101" he discussed. The goal is to provide the package to the leadership by COB Nov 3. Dave described the implementation steps as: