Vender changes for $1 coins & smartcards

I had a look inside both new and old vending machines today; while the revenue collectors emptied same.

I don't recall if they previously had 3 boxes of coinage, or just one for nickels & the other for quarters.

But there's now three; the third to dispense $1 coins.

I also note the both flavors seem to have the same CPU card in the upper RH corner, with hex keyboard. I wonder if the old ones were like that before, or radically changed when they added the smartcard support.

"farecard"
I had a look inside both new and old vending machines today; while the revenue collectors emptied same.

I don't recall if they previously had 3 boxes of coinage, or just one for nickels & the other for quarters.

But there's now three; the third to dispense $1 coins.

I also note the both flavors seem to have the same CPU card in the upper RH corner, with hex keyboard. I wonder if the old ones were like that before, or radically changed when they added the smartcard support.

The vendor are on their 4th of 5th generation. The 1st and 2nd generation only dispensed nickels and quarters all generations excepted dollar coins. The 1st and 2nd generations didn't have keyboards in them. The 3rd generation vender was radically different compared to the 2nd generation vendor, don't recall if it had a keyboard. The 1st and 2nd generation vendors dispensed farecards from a magazine, the later generations dispense farecards from a roll.

I wonder if Treasury gives WMATA some incentive to push the $1 coins? I've noted other transit systems do so as well.

There are pluses for them; they can sort/count/reissue them far more easily than paper. A lot heavier to move around, however.

I wonder what % of fare$ are bought for cash nowadaze?

"farecard"
There are pluses for them; they can sort/count/reissue them far more easily than paper. A lot heavier to move around, however.

I think its the other way around. Walk into any bank branch today and you will find a paper currency counter behind the counter. It is rare to find coin sorter/counter in a bank branch.

WMATA’s Revenue collection facilities likely have both. All of the a paper currency goes to the bank. They likely take in less coins then they dispense in change.

If people would actually get behind 1 dollar coins, we could save a significant amount of money wasted on printing 1 dollar bills.

"farecard"
Between the two, the coin sorter is likely 77X as reliable, and 10x the speed. A paper bill counter does really well on bills in good shape, but let them get dicey, and the story is way different. And that's a counter; it does nothing to validate them.

Most of the currency counters I have seen will count 200 notes in around 10 seconds. The rejection of mutilated notes is less then 2%. The manufactures of currency counters also make units that can count bills of mixed denomination in the same stack. These units can tell the difference between $1.00, $5.00, $10.00, $20.00 $50.00 and $100.00 notes. Each denomination of US currency has different optical and magnetic properties that counting machines uses to validate what denomination it is.

farecard wrote:I wonder if Treasury gives WMATA some incentive to push the $1 coins? I've noted other transit systems do so as well.

Actually, a law was passed back in 05 or 06 requiring all government owned fare machines which give change to give dollar coins as change and receive them as payment. Old units were grandfathered, but any new units had to include support. This law of course, was passed to help distribute the coins.


99% of all vending machines built since the suzzie was introduced support modern dollar coins. If your local machine doesnt accept it, it's because a switch inside hasn't been properly set. That can be fixed any time the machine is opened.