Calgary’s transit fare smart-card project is back after a year in limbo, thanks to a new deal city officials reached Sunday with the contractor that was thrown off the job last year.

Transportation general manager Mac Logan announced Monday that Telvent will produce the Connect card it was supposed to deliver in mid-2012, before delays and failures led Calgary Transit to scrap the program and seek a new contractor.

With the prospect of a new system by a different firm costing an extra $11 million, transit officials this fall announced renewed talks to let Telvent — now known as Schneider Electric — finish the card project and release it by late 2014.

Electronic fare systems, which many other major transit networks already use, replace paper tickets and passes with electronic cards that can be filled with credits online, and are activated at touch-and-go sensors on buses or train platforms. The original Connect project cost $8 million, most of which was federal stimulus funding.

The firm has also created smart-card systems for other transit systems, including in Monterey, Mexico — the only North American city with a busier LRT system than Calgary.

“It’s not like we hired a completely unknown company to do this,” Mayor Naheed Nenshi told reporters.

City officials will keep a closer watch over the project on the contractor’s second chance, the mayor added.

jmarkusoff@calgaryherald.com