Electronic Payment Systems


Tolls, Parking & Beyond

As a national leader in the field of intelligent transportation systems, PBS&J helps provide innovative solutions to the technical, institutional/organizational, and commercial issues associated with electronic payment systems (EPS). Our experts are active members of professional and standards committees that address EPS issues and understand standardized, secure, and diverse payment methods.

Whether planning for the first EPS system or upgrading to the next generation, PBS&J offers the complete range of consulting services. Specialty areas include toll, fee, fare collection systems and operations; revenue operations; data processing and communications; violation enforcement and security; back office and customer service center operations; revenue facility design; and traffic operations.

PBS&J is also qualified to assist clients in exploring and implementing advanced payment systems that allow organizations to use EPS to add value for their customers.

Electronic Toll Collection
PBS&J offers the high degree of technical expertise and in-depth understanding of both the toll business and its customers that is required for the successful planning and implementation of electronic toll collection (ETC). Our firm has led the development of successful ETC projects for systems that represent more than 600 toll lanes. As technology evolves, PBS&J supports clients in developing sound and prudent migration paths for a smooth transition to the next generation ETC system.

Transit Fare Collection
Transit fare collection is a complex blend of policy, technology, finance, and customer service. PBS&J has a solid understanding of how standards, fare structuring, and technology impacts transit fare collection and can effectively guide organizations in developing fare collection solutions that meet their core missions, while providing a platform to enable future commercial applications.

Parking Management & Revenue Control
PBS&J helps to plan and implement parking revenue systems that offer a high level of transaction processing accuracy, accountability, security, violation enforcement, and financial management capability. PBS&J’s experience includes parking revenue collection systems that are interoperable with neighboring ETC systems.

e-Commerce
EPS devices, such as smart cards, can play a vital role in allowing consumers to authenticate themselves to Web sites for electronic commerce, electronic government services, Internet banking, and the reloading of electronic purses, all from their personal computers. Providers of transit, tolls, and parking services offer a “critical mass” customer base that can be the foundation of multiapplication regional payment systems. PBS&J guides these organizations in promoting and analyzing opportunities to leverage EPS in both the real and virtual worlds. We also assist in exploring the nonpayment-related benefits of smart cards, such as loyalty programs.

m-Commerce
The ability of organizations to enable payments by customers who are in a mobile environment will impact their share of the transaction market. Technologies such as the “Subscriber Identity Module” (SIM), similar to smart card and transponder technologies, will provide customers with a convenient method to receive services, as well as provide an additional method for public and private organizations to receive payments. PBS&J can guide clients through the complexities of defining and implementing their mobile payment infrastructure.

A Springboard for ITS
PBS&J helps clients utilize their EPS as the foundation for other intelligent transportation system (ITS) capabilities, such as traveler information, traffic management, and commercial vehicle operations. Once in place, EPS system communication networks can serve as significant portions of other ITS systems, supporting detection, surveillance, vehicle-to-roadside radio communications, and variable message signs.

Technologies Supported

  • Toll collection systems
  • Automatic vehicle classification and identification
  • Violation enforcement
  • Designated short-range communications
  • Transit farebox and automated fare collection systems
  • Parking revenue systems
  • Mag stripe, memory, and microprocessor smart cards
  • Point-of-sale devices
  • Transaction processing
  • e-Commerce, e-purse, and loyalty programs
  • m-Commerce
  • Clearinghouse systems
  • Data processing and communications
  • Customer service center and back office operations
  • Regional multiapplication payment systems
  • Interoperable payment systems

Services Provided

  • Payment system program management
  • Business planning
  • Public/private partnership development
  • Organizational planning and policy development
  • System requirements analysis and conceptual design
  • Systems architecture development
  • Systems engineering and integration
  • RFP, ITN, and contract document preparation
  • Contract administration
  • System documentation preparation
  • Construction engineering and inspection
  • Operations management support
  • Performance evaluation and acceptance testing
  • Marketing support
  • Consensus building on standards and procedures


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