Automated Fare Collection System

In an attempt to cut down on the ever-increasing fraud by passengers and staff, more and more high capacity railways are installing automatic fare collection, commonly known as AFC or, in some places ARC, automatic revenue collection. 

 AFC has two advantages: It automates the ticket accounting and selling processes, and it can give detailed data on system usage. It also reduces ticketless travel, although it never completely eliminates it, and it allows more revenue to be collected without employing an army of staff.

The elements of AFC

• Ticket vending machines (TVMs), where passengers can buy a ticket for their journey.
• Ticket office machines (TOMs), used by railway staff to issue tickets at stations.
• Add value machines (AVMs), where passengers having a stored value ticket can increase the residual value.
• Fare gates, which form a barrier between the "unpaid" area of the station and the "paid" area, where passengers must possess a valid ticket. The fare gate will read and release the gate when a valid ticket is presented.
• Tickets, which come in a number of varieties (according to the system in use) but which all have an electronically encoded data content indicating the validity and/or use of the ticket.
• Website marketing and selling.
• Smart card, credit/debit card and smartphone ticketing.

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