The initiative allows seniors and individuals with disabilities to pay using the BARTA Go Mobile app or smart card, creating a unified, convenient experience across both fixed-route and shared-ride services.
Berks Area Regional Transportation Authority (BARTA), managed by South Central Transit Authority (SCTA), is partnering with Modeshift to pilot a new fare collection system for BARTA Special Services, its shared-ride transportation service for seniors and individuals with disabilities across Berks County.
The pilot extends the success of the “BARTA Go Mobile” brand—currently being used across BARTA’s fixed-route service—and now being offered to the shared ride service, giving Special Services customers the same flexibility and convenience.
BARTA Special Services provides critical door-to-door transportation for those unable to use fixed-route buses, helping residents get to medical appointments, work, shopping and community destinations.
With the new pilot, customers can now pay for trips using a mobile phone or a BARTA Go Mobile card, not just cash. Existing BARTA Go Mobile cards will work across both fixed-route and shared-ride services, while new on-vehicle payment systems and e-wallet functionality simplify transactions and create a unified CX.
“The pilot is about providing access and convenience for our Special Services customers to pay for their trips and not worry about carrying cash when accessing the transportation they depend on,” said Greg Downing, Executive Director of SCTA.
ALSO READ: 35 Must-Read Books on Customer Experience
“By aligning the technology between our fixed-route and shared-ride services, we’re creating one seamless experience under the BARTA Go Mobile brand.”
Key Features of the BARTA Special Services Pilot Include:
- BARTA Go Mobile App:
Special Services customers can now use the BARTA Go Mobile app for Apple or Android devices, enabling fare payment, with QR-code ride validation directly from their smartphones. Customers can add funds and manage their accounts all through the app.
- BARTA Go Mobile Smart Cards:
Reloadable BARTA Go Mobile cards are linked to an e-wallet, allowing customers to add funds to use for their shared ride trips. An online web portal allows them to add funds whenever their account is low. Because of the digital platform, the new payment system allows family members and caregivers the option to manage accounts for their loved ones.
- Seamless Rider Experience:
Consistent branding under BARTA Go Mobile creates one unified system for all BARTA customers across both transit modes.
ALSO READ: To Drive ROI, CX Leaders Must Move Beyond Vanity Metrics
The new payment system builds on the success of Modeshift’s 360-degree fare collection platform, which has already modernised SCTA’s fixed-route services across Berks and Lancaster counties.
“This pilot with BARTA is a natural evolution of our partnership with SCTA, and we’re proud to see our platform expanding into shared ride services,” said Miroslav Katsarov, CEO of Modeshift. “It shows how flexible and customizable our system is, meeting the needs of agencies across modes while keeping things simple for riders.”
The pilot reflects a movement among small and mid-sized transit agencies to adopt modern, account-based fare collection systems without the complexity of lengthy technology projects. For BARTA customers, it means convenience and equity, particularly for seniors and individuals with disabilities who rely on Special Services.
ALSO READ: Phonexa Increases Consumer Conversions Through SMS
Microsoft Dynamics 365 represents a robust cloud-based CRM solution with features such as pipeline assessment, relationship analytics, and conversational intelligence. It utilises AI-powered insights to provide actionable intelligence via predictive analytics, lead scoring, sentiment analysis, etc. Currently, Microsoft operates in 190 countries and is made up of more than 220,000 employees worldwide.
HubSpot is an inbound marketing, sales, and customer service software provider, offering robust CRM and automation solutions. Some of its products include Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Operations Hub, Content Hub, Commerce Hub, Marketing Analytics and Dashboard Software. Guided by its inbound methodology, HubSpot enables companies to prioritise innovation and customer success.
Monday.com is a project management software company, offering a cloud-based platform that enables businesses 
Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Freshworks is a global AI-powered business software provider. Its tech stack includes a scalable and comprehensive suite for IT, customer support, sales, and marketing teams, ensuring value for immediate business impact. Its product portfolio includes Customer Service Suite, Freshdesk, Freshchat, Freshcaller, Freshsuccess, and Freshservice. Freshservice for Business Teams has helped several global organisations to enhance their operational efficiency.
Talkdesk offers an innovative AI-powered customer-centric tech stack to its global partners. The company provides generative AI integrations, delivering industry-specific solutions to its customers. Talkdesk CX Cloud and Industry Experience Clouds utilise modern machine learning and language models to enhance contact centre efficiency and client satisfaction.
The company offers comprehensive cloud-based solutions, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365, Gaming Consoles, Microsoft Advertising, Copilot, among other things, to help organisations offer enhanced CX and ROI. Its generative-AI-powered speech and voice recognition solutions,such as Cortana and Azure Speech Services empowers developers to build intelligent applications.
IBM is a global hybrid cloud and AI-powered 
Uniphore is an enterprise-class, AI-native company that was incubated in 2008. Its enterprise-class multimodal AI and data platform unifies all elements of voice, video, text and data by leveraging Generative AI, Knowledge AI, Emotion AI and workflow automation. Some of its products include U-Self Serve, U-Assist, U-Capture, and U-Analyze. Its Q for Sale is a conversational intelligence software that guides revenue teams with AI-powered insights, offering clarity on how to effectively keep prospects engaged.
Google Cloud accelerates every organisation’s ability to digitally transform its business. Its enterprise-grade solutions leverage modern technology to solve the most criticial business problems 
8×8 offers out-of-the-box contact centre solutions, assisting all-size businesses to efficiently meet customer needs and preferences. It offers custom CRM integrations support and integrates effortlessly with third-party CRMs like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Zendesk, and more. Offering global support in all time zones & development teams in 5 continents, its patented geo-routing solution ensures consistent voice quality.
Sprinklr is a comprehensive enterprise software company for all customer-focused functions. With advanced AI, Sprinklr’s unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform lets organisations offer human experiences to every customer, every time, across any modern channel.
Upland offers a comprehensive suite of contact centre and customer service solutions with products including InGenius, Panviva, Rant & Rave, and RightAnswers. InGenius enables organisations to connect their existing phone system with CRM, further enhancing agent productivity. Panviva provides compliant and omnichannel capabilities for highly regulated industries. Whereas, Rant & Rave, and RightAnswers are its AI-powered solutions, 
Zoho Social, a part of Zoho’s suite of 50+ products, is a comprehensive social media management platform for businesses and agencies. The Zoho Social dashboard includes a robust set of features, such as Publishing Calendar, Bulk Scheduler, and Approval Management to offer businesses all the essential social media publishing tools. Its monitoring tools help enterprises track and respond to relevant social conversations.
Hootsuite, headquartered in Vancouver, is a social media management platform that streamlines the process of managing multiple social media accounts. Some of its core offerings include social media content planning and publishing, audience engagement tools, analytics and social advertising. Its easy-to-integrate capabilities help marketing teams to schedule and publish social media posts efficiently.
Brandwatch enables businesses to build and scale the optimal strategy for their clients with intuitive, use-case-focused tools that are easy and quick to master. Bringing together consumer intelligence and social media management, the company helps its users react to the trends that matter, collaborate on data-driven content, shield the brand from threats and manage all the social media channels at scale.
Zoho Corporation offers innovative and tailored software to help leaders grow their business. Zoho’s 55+ products aid sales and marketing, support and collaboration, finance, and recruitment requirements. Its customer analytics capabilities come with a conversational feature, Ask Zia. It enables users to ask questions and get insights in the form of reports and widgets in real-time.
Salesforce-owned Tableau is an AI-powered analytics and business intelligence platform, offering the breadth and depth of capabilities that serve the requirements of global enterprises in a seamless, integrated experience. Marketers can utilise generative AI models, AI-powered predictions, natural language querying, and recommendationsons.
Fullstory is a behavioural data platform, helping C-suite leaders make informed decisions by injecting digital behavioural data into its analytics stack. Its patented technology uncovers the power of quality behavioural data at scale, transforming every digital visit into actionable insights. Enterprises can increase funnel conversion and identify their highest-value customers effortlessly.
Contentsquare is a cloud-based digital experience analytics platform, helping brands track billions of digital interactions, and turn those digital 
Amplitude is a product analytics platform, enabling businesses to track visitors with the help of collaborative analytics. The platform leverages the capabilities of 
Adobe Experience Cloud offers a comprehensive set of applications, capabilities, and services specifically designed to address day-to-day requirement for personalised customer experiences at scale. Its platform helps play an essential role in managing different digital content or assets to improve customer happiness. Its easy-to-optimise content gives users appropriate marketing streams, ensuring product awareness.
Started in 2005 in a Sweden-based small town, Norrköping, Voyado offers a customer experience cloud platform that includes a customer loyalty management system. This platform helps businesses design and implement customer loyalty programs, track customer 
TapMango provides a comprehensive, customisable, flexible and feature-rich customer loyalty program. The loyalty tools include an integrated suite of customised consumer-facing technology, easy-to-use merchant tools, and automation algorithms, all aimed at enhancing customer experience. Adaptable to any industry, TapMango’s platform helps merchants compete with larger chains, converting customer one-time purchases into profitable spending habits.
Adobe Experience Cloud offers a comprehensive set of applications, capabilities, and services specifically designed to address day-to-day requirements for personalised customer experiences at scale. Its innovative platform has played an essential role in managing different digital content or assets, to improve customer happiness or satisfaction. Some of its products include Adobe Gen Studio, Experience Manager Sites, Real-time CDP, and Marketo Engage.
