INIT Grand Rapids Fare Collection Portals

INIT Innovations in Transportation provides Intelligent Transportation Systems for public transit. As a turnkey supplier, INIT develops, produces, installs, and maintains integrated hardware and software solutions for all key tasks of public transit companies.

INIT selected Marathon as a trusted partner on the implementation of an account-based smart card and mobile ticketing solution for the Grand Rapids metro area transportation system, “The Rapid.” Marathon designed and developed web application portals that provide online management of transit fare accounts. Two (2) fare collection portals were developed, one for the general public and one that allows organizations to manage fare cards for their members and employees. These portals allow users to manage their fare cards, add money to their cards, schedule auto-reloads when the balance is low, and transfer balances between cards.

Each fare collection portal user interface was designed with simplicity in mind, allowing the user to easily manage their account from anywhere. The responsive front-end was developed using HTML5, CSS, and Vue.js, and is targeted for the mobile user on a tablet or smartphone. The portals were built on the Umbraco content management system (CMS) platform, allowing the transit agency to easily make content updates. Marathon integrated each portal into INIT’s APIs for transaction processing.

With the successful implementation of these portals, Marathon is also partnering with INIT on several other smart card and mobile ticketing portals for transit agencies across the U.S.