Australian technology group ERG, in partnership with Motorola, has won an $261m contract from the Rome transit authority to manage the Italian capital’s public transport fare collection. The contract, which still has to get final approval from the authority’s board of directors, was awarded on the strength of the Melbourne Automated Ticketing System which will be used as a model for Rome’s public transport system.
The Roman authorities sent a delegation to Melbourne to inspect its Automated Ticketing System, which is run by ERG and is the world’s first fully integrated and outsourced ticketing system. As in the Melbourne contract, it will be in ERG’s interest to crack down on Roman fare evasion because payment will be in the form of a percentage of the fares.
ERG estimate that gross transit fare revenue each year will average 500bn lire ($314m) during the nine-year term of the contract. The ERG-Motorola alliance will get about 450bn lire of this in fees.
ERG and Motorola will design, install, manage, and maintain the new Metrebus system for buses, trains and trams in Rome and nearby Lazio and will issue more than a million smart cards to Rome’s Metrebus commuters over the next two years.
The Rome project is the largest of four contracts awarded to the ERG-Motorola alliance during the past two months with the others in Berlin, San Francisco and Singapore. ERG’s shares rose $0.50 to $2.90 yesterday after the Perth-based company announced the deal.
