RIPTA is getting new electronic fare boxes for its buses to replace the mechanical ones that the agency says are not just obsolete, but also worn out.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

PROVIDENCE — The state’s transit agency is spending $4.75 million to change your life — at least the few seconds of it you spend paying for the trip after getting on one of its buses.

The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority is installing new, electronic, “smart” fare boxes on its regular buses to replace the mechanical ones that the agency says are not just obsolete, but also worn out.

Mark Therrien, RIPTA’s planning director, said the new fare boxes, together with new tickets and passes, will make it easier for customers to reduce the amount of cash they have to carry and RIPTA has to handle, and give the authority an enormous amount of information about how riders use the system.

The system will also eliminate one annoyance, the dilemma that arises when you want to go someplace and you have nothing smaller than a $5 bill. RIPTA drivers don’t have change, so do you pay $5 for a $1.50 ride, or walk?

The new system will take your $5 and give you a “change card” worth $3.50 which can be used to pay for more rides. If you end up with a change card worth 25 cents, you can use that plus $1.25 in cash to pay for a ride.

With its gadgetry, the new fare system also raises privacy questions. Many riders will remain anonymous — the system will track where their fare cards are purchased and where and when they are used, but it can’t identify the passenger carrying them.

But Therrien said that riders who will be able to use their college and university student identification cards, and employees who use their company ID cards, are different: the cards identify them individually.

That’s good, from the college’s standpoint, Therrien said, because RIPTA can charge the college for the actual number of rides used, and if a student drops out, he or she can be dropped from the system and can’t ride any more on the college’s nickel.

But Therrien said RIPTA is making rules to keep the individual information private. “Only a couple of people at RIPTA will have access to the raw data,” he said, and its use will be restricted.

The new system starts to go into effect July 30, although major elements won’t change immediately.

Therrien said he talked to officials of other transit authorities who tried to do it all at once — new fare boxes, new passes, new everything.

“They said the first month was hell,” he said, with buses stalled with lines of riders waiting to get on, while other passengers were getting explanations of the new system from the driver.

The unassuming, rectangular, waist-high fare boxes come from GFI Genfare, a Chicago company that makes a variety of rapid transit fare-collection equipment. It is part of SPX Corp., a New York Stock Exchange-listed company in Charlotte, N.C.

They have a slot on the left top for insertion of various fare cards, another slot on the right top for “swiping” cards and transfers, plus slots for bills and coins and a display for information for the passenger. RIPTA has been showing off the new equipment at Kennedy Plaza, Newport’s Gateway Center and the Pawtucket Transit Center.

The new system will accept passes and tickets with magnetic strips on them, and will also accept “smart cards,” like credit cards, if RIPTA decides to use them. The assorted fare tickets and cards aren’t refundable for cash.

Therrien said the most frequent questions have been: what happens to the popular monthly pass, and what happens to the passes for elderly and disabled people?

Nothing right away, he said, although they’ll change later to electronic “swipe” cards.

For the moment, at least, the two most basic fares, for a single ride and for a monthly pass, stay the same, at $1.50 and $45, respectively. You will also still be able to pay for a single ride for $1.50 in cash.

Here are some changes:

•The present Riptiks — books of 10 paper tickets — will be replaced with an electronic version, which will be sold at Kennedy Plaza, Shaw’s and Stop & Shop stores and Eastside Marketplace. The old paper ones will be good until Oct. 31. They can be exchanged for the new ones at Kennedy Plaza the weeks of July 16-20 and July 23-27.

•There will be a new, 15-ride pass for $20, sold at Kennedy Plaza, Shaw’s and Stop & Shop. That comes to $1.33 per ride, an 11-percent discount from the $1.50 fare.

•One-day passes will drop from $6 to $5. Therrien said sales of those passes, used mostly by tourists in Newport, dropped off when RIPTA raised the price from $5 to $6. They will be for sale through the new fare boxes.

•The change card will have the balance printed on it. When you use it to pay for a ride, it will come back out of the fare box with the new balance on it.

•Transfers will be free instead of 10 cents each, but Therrien said RIPTA will build that back into the fare structure by charging $15 for 10 “e-Riptiks” instead of the present $13.50 for 10 paper Riptiks.

•The group pass, mainly used in Newport, will be no more. Instead, RIPTA wants you to buy 10 “e-Riptiks” or a 15-ride pass and use them for each member of the group.

Depending on how you look at it, the higher price for 10 e-Riptiks could be considered a wash given the now-free transfer, the end of a discount or a modest rate increase.

Therrien said there has been no discussion of raising the base, $1.50 single-ride fare. He said that RIPTA’s high and growing ridership could prompt a look at a fare increase, but said the agency’s board of directors has given no indication it wants to do so.

blandis@projo.com