Implementation of multimodal electronic payment systems : lessons from Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul

Abstract

Adoption of technology in the public sector typically involves a balance of willingness to take on risk and the development of a forward-thinking agenda (Mulgan & Albury, 2003). Technology adoption in the public transportation sector follows this process and as a result, adoption can occur long after the technology is available. As in other sectors, technology has and continues to transform transportation in the US and around the world. Shared mobility services like bikeshare, carshare, and ride-sourcing services are now part of many cities' mobility ecosystem, adding to the traditional modes of public transit, cabs, and private cars. Accessing these different modal options, however, require different payment media and separate mobile apps for each system to plan and pay for travel, thus creating a fragmented user experience. Technological change in existing payment systems, specifically, unified or integrated payment systems, could improve the user experience and reduce the barriers to adoption of more modes of transport-including those that might be more sustainable. While integrated payment, or multimodal payment convergence, appears to be a hot topic among policymakers and practitioners, implementation in US cities has been limited. In my research, I seek to understand the potential barriers to and drivers of multimodal payment technology, studying the adoption of these systems in two regions, Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The research uses literature in the adoption of technology in transportation to contextualize the case studies in Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Through the exploration of these two cases, the research provides evidence that while payment technology has matured to enable multimodal payment systems, institutional factors such as limited coordination between public and private operators and organizational resource constraints remain barriers to implementation. However, incremental collaboration, vocal advocates, and federal funding support for multimodal payment systems might be used as strategies to overcome these barriers.