ALBUQUERQUE- Mayor Martin J. Chavez and ABQ Ride Director Greg Payne are pleased to announce the debut of 1, 2, or 3-day passes available for purchase on your bus. Stimulus-funded updates for the fareboxes created a way for all ABQ Ride buses to produce the new pass options. The date for the updated systems to be showcased on our buses will be December 1, 2009.

“We are eager to see riders embrace this new system, and we’re hopeful that it will create a more user-friendly option for passengers,” says Mayor Martin Chavez. “This is just one of the many ways the City of Albuquerque is working to integrate the newest technology into our departments.”

The multiple day pass option is easy to use: Passengers simply get on the bus and deposit the correct change into the farebox, the cost is two dollars per day. The pass will print and then the passenger will swipe the pass and board their bus. The three day passes will be issued for three consecutive days, each time the rider boards they will swipe their pass.

“Standardizing all the bus fareboxes is a goal we worked hard to reach,” says ABQ Ride Director Greg Payne. “The ABQ Ride team has been working on this project for about six months. This new option is a convenient way for our riders to purchase a multiple day pass at a centralized location…their bus!”

This project was allotted about 1.3 million dollars, of stimulus monies, to cover the expenses associated with purchasing and installing the new fareboxes, as well as the cost of updates for older fareboxes.