Cubic Launches New Bus Platform to Integrate Automatic Fare Collection Systems.

Business Editors

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 25, 2002

San Diego-based Cubic Transportation Systems, a subsidiary of Cubic Corp. (AMEX:CUB), launches its new Cubic Bus Controller (CBC), a powerful on-bus processing platform designed to integrate automatic fare collection technology, including contactless smart card processing and farebox cash collection.

The San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board (MTDB) and the North County Transit District (NCTD) will implement the platform as part of their recently announced contracts with Cubic.

"To achieve their goals of increasing ridership and providing a reliable, convenient and attractive service to the public, bus operators must solve the fundamental problem of how to board and process passengers serially, without failure and with minimum dwell time, and transport them safely and on schedule in an uncontrolled, mobile environment," said David deKozan, vice president, Market Planning & Support, Cubic Transportation Systems.

Bus operators traditionally have purchased separate fare collection and bus management systems. Several market factors, including the increased requirements for public safety, growing complexity in managing regional transit systems and new opportunities made available by smart cards and wireless data communications, have created the need for transit agencies to have fully integrated fare collection and on-vehicle information systems.

Packaged in a flexible, user-friendly driver control unit, CBC communicates with the depot computer and/or central computer system via WLAN or an optional wireless communications card to support real-time wireless communications. Additionally, the unit is designed to support a GPS receiver enabling location stamping of automatic fare collection transactions and the support of automated vehicle location.

"The primary job of the driver is driving the bus to deliver a safe and on-time service to the public. This is a way to automate and simplify the driver's additional responsibilities of collecting fares and communicating the status of the bus with the depot. Cubic's Driver Control Unit (DCU) can provide drivers with a single interface for logon and operation of all bus equipment, letting the driver focus on driving, safety and schedule adherence," deKozan said. "CBC combined with the Cubic Tri-Reader establishes a truly open architecture enabling multiple contactless smart card technologies and applications."

CBC provides the capability to integrate applications such as Automatic Vehicle Location, Automatic Passenger Counting, and Video Surveillance. The ability to get real-time status about bus fleets and the potential to accurately calculate the number of passengers on the bus at any given time is of tremendous value to transit agencies in managing their fleet operations and improving their security levels. CBC offers a "future-proof" solution for transit agencies to add loadable applications as needed and as available.

"We designed our DCU with an open architecture for the greatest flexibility in configuration and integration and for interoperability with third party equipment to give the transit agency a system capable of expansion and functional evolution, protecting the agency's long-term investment," deKozan said. "With CBC, transit agencies are afforded the flexibility to launch vehicle management initiatives that start with fare collection and later migrate to bus management or expand later to smart card fare collection."

Cubic Transportation Systems is the world's largest provider of integrated electronic ticketing systems and has smart card contracts for public transit systems in North America, Europe and Asia. Every year, nearly 10 billion people use Cubic systems in more than 40 major markets in cities on five continents, including London, Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, Chicago, New York, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Atlanta, San Francisco, Singapore and Miami. As part of the TranSys consortium, Cubic also is supplying the entire automated fare collection system including smart cards for the London PRESTIGE project.

The corporation's other major segment, Cubic Defense Applications, provides instrumented air and ground combat training systems, battle command training, simulations and simulation support for U.S. and allied military forces. The group also produces high technology avionics, data links and communications products for government and commercial customers, and a wide range of technical and logistics services.

Recently, Cubic added a security group to expand its smart card technology into non-transit uses including parking, security and access control. For more information about Cubic, see the company's Web site at www.cubic.com.