MBTA plans an upgrade of Silver Line fare boxes

Responding to frustrations from Silver Line riders about lengthy waits to board buses, the MBTA is sending a staff member next week to Germany to examine an overhauled version of the fare box in the new Automated Fare Collection system.

The Silver Line Bus service on Washington Street is the trial for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's Automated Fare Collection system for its 1,000 buses and 400 Green Line light-rail trains. New fare boxes, designed by the German firm Scheidt & Bachmann, were installed Jan. 31 on the 17 buses that run on the Washington branch of the Silver Line.

The T plans to start rolling out the new equipment on all its buses and Green Line trains next spring.

After only a couple of months, the T had received numerous complaints from riders that the coin slot and bill acceptor were difficult to use. Riders unfamiliar with the new equipment have to be shown by the driver, slowing down boarding on the authority's first ''rapid" bus route.

Several riders were observed fumbling with the fare box aboard a Silver Line bus yesterday afternoon, causing other passengers to grumble about the delays.

''Our customers are the best test pool that we could ask for," said Stephen Berrang, the T's assistant general manager who is supervising the Automated Fare Collection project. ''We've been working on this for five years, and they are showing us things that we hadn't expected. We are correcting them."

The redesigned fare box will feature a smaller coin slot, one similar to that of a food or beverage vending machine. This should eliminate the problem of riders trying to throw their coins down the existing slot all at once, Berrang said.

The new bus fare boxes -- part of a massive overhaul that will include replacing subway tokens and paper transfers with plastic cards. -- must process coins one at a time to verify their amount, he said.

LUCAS WALL