'Embarrassing': Another delay hits Halifax Transit tap-to-pay rollout

‘December? You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Dartmouth councillor censures transit managers, delay will cost over $200k

A mess. Embarrassing. Unbelievable.

Another delay in rolling out a tap-to-pay system on Halifax Transit buses was called all kinds of names at city hall Tuesday as the transit director fell on his sword for the screw-up. “It’s embarrassing, to be honest,” said Coun. Tony Mancini (Dartmouth East – Burnside).

“We have such a great city, but here we are with transit; we’re trying to encourage people to take transit, but yet we cause these obstacles. December? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Paired with a fare hike Back in budget debates in March, Halifax regional council decided to pair a necessary 25-cent across-the-board fare hike with the long-awaited rollout of the tap-to-pay system in September. This would allow riders to simply pay their fare by tapping a credit or debit card on a machine installed on the bus. Cape Breton got it done in June.

But transit staff told councillors Tuesday that they found out after the budget passed this spring that there would be another delay. This time, the rollout date is set for Dec. 21. Marc Santilli, manager of technical services for Halifax Transit, said the reason is the certification of debit payments.

HRM’s contracted vendor needs to go through a certification process with another company to process debit cards. “And our understanding at the outset of this project was that it had been done for other properties and wouldn’t need to be repeated, but that was not the case,” he said. “It was a lack of understanding and a lack of clarity in terms of getting that information.”

Someone has to take ownership, Mancini fired back. “It happened on our watch,” railed Mancini. “Robin (Gerus, who took over as director of Halifax Transit last year), you know, I don’t understand, man.

We asked you to come in here and clean up the mess, and here we are. This continues to be a mess. So I’m not happy.”

Gerus said it’s not the vendor’s fault, it’s his, and part of the problem was that the sales pitch was different than what was delivered. “The issue with this company was that our understanding was it would be quicker, but that was based on their experience, I believe, with an American company . . . but they had to do the same process here in Canada to make sure we met our guidelines,” Gerus said.

“I made the wrong decision by agreeing to come to council and say, ‘I believe we can do that’ based on the information I had at the time. Right after that, we started talking to the vendor, found out that there was a more difficult process that had to take place, and that’s 100 per cent on transit.” In 2022, HRM hired U.K.-based Masabi for mobile fare payment applications, with tap-to-pay as the final phase.

The contract is worth over $1.3 million, with $243,936 for maintenance and support. Gerus said Masabi isn’t passing the buck and he takes responsibility for the timeline issue. “I made a wrong decision.

This isn’t on the vendor.” Just last month, the municipal auditor general pointed out several concerning issues with how HRM greenlights projects, including alerting the RCMP to some red flags at the mayor’s office. Delaying transit fare increase Mayor Andy Fillmore received unanimous support for an amendment to push the fare increase back to December to pair with the rollout of the tap-to-pay system.

He also asked for a report to figure out how to cover the revenue gap of $288,600 the delay will cause. Fillmore later told reporters he expects staff will be able to find the money out of transit’s $160-million operating budget. “It’s my own belief, and not tested with the council, but just my own that Halifax Transit is responsible.

They need to look into their budget and find out where they can find $280,000 in a way that doesn’t impact taxpayers,” Fillmore said. If the fare increase started in September as planned, it would have brought in an extra $865,600 for what would be left of the 2026-27 fiscal year. A full year is worth $1,731,100.

“I’m just calling it that this isn’t just embarrassing; I think it’s financially very, very damaging as well,” said Coun. Nancy Hartling (Prospect Rd. – St. Margarets). “This isn’t just, you know, it takes longer or whatever.

These are services that I think our residents are entitled to, and I think the budget implications are extraordinary.” Questions, questions Besides expressing their frustration with another delay, councillors had a lot of questions for Santilli and Gerus. Can we switch vendors at this point?

No, said Santilli. “We are contractually tied to this vendor, and we purchase a lot of hardware for them. So to start over would be tremendously expensive.”

What about just using credit cards to start? Staff looked at that, said Santilli, but were told by Masabi that the payment processor told them it would cause more problems than it was worth. Will Masabi compensate HRM for the delay?

No, Santilli said. “They haven’t been asked to compensate us in some way, shape or form simply because they hadn’t specified a definitive timeline at the outset. We made some assumptions.

We planned what the timeline would be, and only after we got started on the actual work of the project did we learn what the true timeline would be.” Are there any penalties for the delay? Gerus said he believes there are penalties if the product isn’t completed, but this relates to a phase in the contract “and I don’t believe we were at that stage of defining the exact time allotment on that additional work that the vendor had to do.”

Related John Hamm leaves a lasting legacy in Nova Scotia South-end Halifax church hopes to survive with 14-storey residential development Coun. Jean St-Amand (Bedford – Wentworth) argued that the company should take some responsibility as they knew they were working in the Canadian market.

“I truly appreciate you, Robin, for falling on the sword, but at the same time, I would expect the vendor to take some responsibility in communicating timelines.” Several councillors complimented Gerus on taking responsibility and for his blunt honesty. Will the delay add a cost to the project?

There will be additional costs due to the delay, confirmed Santilli. This has been a mess from the beginning, summed up Coun. Sam Austin (Dartmouth Centre).

“Before we rip our hair out and say this is the worst thing possible, we’re getting mad at the last two per cent of basically an ongoing shemozzle,” he said. “This has been delayed time and time and time again, and I think throwing a fit here at the last moment on this one is missing a whole lot that has gone before.”