SEPTA Key costs soar to $297M as agency fixes snafus

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SEPTA’s old “We’re Getting There” slogan from the eighties may be gone, but it has not been forgotten by local commuters who still bring it up on social media.

SEPTA’s capital budget for the upcoming fiscal year increased the estimated total price of implementing the Key card payment system to $297.77 million, a nearly $30 million increase over last year’s projection and $122 million more than the $175 million cost SEPTA estimated after selecting the project’s main contractor.

The 70 percent price jump comes along with a three-year delay on the project’s finish date — the project, which was originally scheduled for completion in December 2013, is now expected to wrap in 2020. Both changes can be blamed on unexpected do-overs and additions needed for the system software, and design upgrades for the notoriously user-unfriendly kiosks, writes Jim Saksa of WHYY in the Philadelphia Business Journal.

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Every fix needed to make the cards easier to use means a revision to the scope of the initial contract with the contractors implementing Key, said Tom McFadden, SEPTA’s chief financial officer.

“There have been change orders that we’ve put in for either additional capacity or additional functionality,” said McFadden. “So, as we hear information from customers, things that they’re looking for, we start to look at ways that we can add functionality to the program. And all that gets thrown into the change orders, and that’s what really results in a higher budget.”

In March, SEPTA’s board of directors authorized the 18th change order with Conduent, the primary contractor for the Key system, raising the contract price to $159,773,499. The board simultaneously approved SEPTA’s 11th change order with Edens Corporation, which is working on the Key’s implementation on Regional Rail, increasing the total contract price to $81,628,804.

To read the entire story click here.

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