Suraj Adesanya hopped on the No. 51 bus late Tuesday afternoon, heading home to Licking County, and swiped his COTA monthly pass to pay his fare.

By the end of this year, the 62-year-old accountant will be able to tap his smartphone on the bus company's new "smart fare" box to pay for his trip — and he can't wait.

"That would be phenomenal," Adesanya said after boarding the bus Downtown.

"'It saves time. I could choose to download my payment from the comfort of my home."

Fare boxes are being replaced on COTA's 430-bus fleet. It's one of several time-saving, customer-friendly technological changes that COTA plans in the next year to make riding the bus more convenient for existing customers and those COTA hopes to attract.

"I think all of COTA's effort is to increase our ridership and increase our customers," said Micheal Carroll, COTA's vice president of information technology and chief information officer.

The new fare boxes will mean no more fumbling for coins, scrambling for exact change or going to the COTA office or ticket vending machines to buy passes.

"In today's world, that's no longer convenient," Carroll said.

The first big technological change came earlier this year when COTA spent $125,000 to provide Wi-Fi on all of its buses, becoming one of three U.S. cities to provide fleetwide Wi-Fi, Carroll said. Now, the new fare boxes are beginning to appear on buses, but the ability to pay from a smartphone won't be turned on until later this year, after more testing.

"There won't be much of a change for the customers right away," COTA spokeswoman Lisa Myers said. "This is laying the groundwork."

The current fare boxes were purchased in 1996 and upgraded in 2011, Carroll said. The new boxes already have been installed on all 80 of the paratransport fleet and five of the regular buses. Those five began using new fare boxes this past weekend as a pilot program before the $6.8 million project is completed with installation of new fare boxes on all buses by the end of this year.

The new boxes will print out receipts and transfers. The existing fare boxes require drivers to write out or validate those documents, wasting time. The new boxes also talk, telling rider and driver whether transfers are valid and other instructions.

"This system simplifies it for the operator," Carroll said.

The new boxes still accept coins and cash bills, as well as the daily, monthly and annual passes with magnetic strips. They're also capable of offering riders other options to pay fares.

"Mobile Ticket" is the COTA program that requires a smartphone and a free app — COTA Connector — that will let riders pay fares by touching their smartphone to the fare box. It's not been rolled out yet but is likely to use a credit card connected to the smartphone to pay the bill.

It will generate a unique code similar to a Quick Response or QR code, a matrix bar code, which becomes unique to that smartphone. COTA won't have access to your financial information using Mobile Ticket. Instead, the fare box vendor handles the payments through its servers.

In about a year, COTA expects to introduce Smartcard. It will allow users to load money onto a card with a magnetic strip. Once swiped or tapped on the new fare box, the fare will be deducted or charged to an account that is connected to a credit card.

If the Smartcard is lost, owners will be able to cancel it and not lose any money loaded on it.

The technological changes will help COTA implement its "Best Fare" program within a year, benefiting frequent riders who can't afford monthly passes. For example, once a rider using a Smartcard pays fares that are more than the cost of a monthly pass, the rest of the rides for that 31-day period would be free.

"It's bringing (fare cost) neutrality to everyone," Carroll said.

COTA also is considering raising its $2 bus fare, possibly by 50 to 75 cents, a move that could be approved this month.

kperry@dispatch.com

@kimballperry