Transit agencies look to ‘rewire’ tech infrastructure

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has made great strides in recent years, including winning a national award as agency of the year in 2025 from the American Public Transportation Association.

But while a lot of attention focuses on its buses, trains and paratransit, the technology that underpins those systems is just as important. And one WMATA official said there is a lot of work still ahead if the agency is to move forward, especially in procuring that technology.

Sarah Meyer, WMATA’s chief customer officer, said during the Adobe Government Forum in Washington, D.C. last week that the agency is looking to “rewire our infrastructure” to have far more control over its technology and not be so reliant on vendors. That issue becomes especially pressing in areas like station signage, which may all operate using different contractors on different operating systems with different, proprietary, content management systems.

“I have signs all over in different stations that have different operating systems, and it's so difficult to get up to date information to those signs, they all sometimes say something different,” Meyer said during a panel discussion.

The pace of technological evolution also presents some challenges for a transit agency that has millions of rides every month. Meyer pointed to the latest version of the agency’s rail cars, whose information boards are all controlled on one computer in a rail yard in Greenbelt, Maryland. And with WMATA looking to produce the next generation of rail cars, they want to avoid such technological challenges while being mindful of how tech has evolved over time.

“The rate of change while ordering trains that take 10 years to produce, it's a really hard challenge,” Meyer said. “I'm grateful for… folks in the industry that are really putting our foot down now and telling our vendors we want to have more control over the systems that you're putting in, because the rate of change is just so great.”

Other transit agencies have faced similar challenges with the pace of technological change. Kevin McAuliffe, chief technology and digital innovation officer at the privately owned and operated intercity Brightline rail system in Florida, recalled that the agency’s tech strategy used to be focused on buying everything ahead of time and then storing it for when stations were ready to be built.

“We built our Orlando station in 2023, and I had seven-year-old TVs coming out of the box that the warranty was already up on,” said McAuliffe. “I have 500 screens, and maybe 90% of them are out of warranty.”

In addition, McAuliffe said early in his tenure that it felt “almost impossible” to ride a Brightline train, from buying a ticket to riding the escalators to knowing when a train would show up. A combination of proprietary technology that was unreliable and not interoperable made for a frustrating experience for everybody, including employees who felt the wrath of customers but could not help much.

“Every one of those things was a disparate system, singularly built for autonomy,” McAuliffe said. “What we found out is you can't have a station where you just let people walk through it and onto a platform, you jump on any train you want, when you demand that they buy a ticket. All these different things, we had to rethink what we needed to do.”

Both agencies, then, have needed to think differently in how they approach technology. And work is already underway as WMATA has introduced tap-to-pay technology at its faregates to allow riders to pay with a debit or credit card and is looking to make its buses run more efficiently by punishing bus lane infractions. Meyer said the agency is also looking to revamp its website and make trip planning more useful.

Meanwhile, Brightline is looking to be “frictionless and seamless” by leveraging artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology, McAuliffe said. The system is also looking to use LiDAR to identify problematic sections of track for preventative maintenance before there are issues.

Too many pedestrians are still being killed by Brightline trains, and when vehicles fail to follow safety signals at crossings. McAuliffe said addressing that issue is critical too, but he said is hopeful of living “in an environment where people can trust and get on public transportation the way they want to get to where they want to go, safely and securely.”

Meyer said one of her main priorities is an efficient ride, and making it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to have a good experience.

“I care deeply about the amount of time our customers are spending on our system, and trying to reduce that as much as possible so that people can get to where they're going faster, easier, with less anxiety, less fear, so they can focus on the things that matter: their jobs, their lives, getting to doctors’ appointments on time and getting the services that they need,” she said.