A LARGE COMPUTERIZED AUTO~~TIC SYSTEM
THE AUTO~TIC FARE COLLEC TI O~ SYSTEM OF THE PAR I S
Michel Jacoub
Chief Engineer
Compagni e Generale d'Automatisme
Paris, Fr an ce
ABSTRACT
The paper describes the Automatic Far e Co llection
System designed f or the Paris urban Metro netwo r k.
The system performs ticket sale , ticket checking
and gate contro l at e ntran ce and exit o f stations
as well as statistical and acco unt an cy functions.
The system is fully ce ntr alized with two levels
of processing and includ es i n th e prese nt stage
about 2000 station pe riph era ls.
The system has been progressively put ln opera tion
since the end of 1973 .
Besides des c ribing the Paris Metro Syst em th e
rep ort o utlines the design procedure t o meet the
basic requirements and illustr ates how different
operating co nditi ons have l ed to different des igns
for systems per f o rming similar t asks .
SUMMARY
The Paris Metro Aut oma tic Fare Collec ti on System
provides for th e sale of transp o rtation tickets,
ticket checking and gate control in all the
stations of the urban rail way ne two r k . It perfo rms
sales and r ecei pts accountancy and stati s ti ca l
operations and checks station personnel clock-in
and c lo ck- out.
The system is organized in a three leve l hi e r a rchy.
Ticket vending ma chines and automatic ga t e s wi th
ticket readers f orm the peripheral level . The
peripherals ope r ate in a s lave mode and are fully
controlled by AFC processors which consti tut e the
second level. Acco untin g , sta ti stica l and general
data a re centra li zed and processed by the third,
data col l ection pro cessing level.
The periph erals , which number abo ut 2000 at present,
but may be ex tended to about 4000, are distributed
over the tr ansp o rtation ne twork. The 10 normal AFC
processors and t hei r 2 stand - bys and the 2 da ta
co ll ection pro cesso rs are centralized on the same
site.
The system has been progre ss i ve ly put in operation
between end of 19 73 and 1974.
343
'~TRO
Beside s describing the Pa ris ~etro System the
r epo rt outlin es the design pr oced ur e to meet the
basic requir ements and i llu s tr ates how differen t
opera tin g co ndit i on s have l ed to different designs
for systems performing s imil ar t asks.
GENERA.L
The role of a fare co ll ect ion system is t o co ll ec t
Lhe "t oll " which has to be paid fo r the partial
and personal use of a utility built for a co l lec ti-
vity. Thi s utility may be a transporta ti on mea ns ,
a road o r eve n a ca r park . ~ostly the co ll ect i on
of th e toll or fa r e i s coup l ed t o the emission of
a ticket whose validity will be checked at entr an ce
t o and/or ex it from th e utility, the fare co ll ec -
tion proper t aking place eithe r at en tr ance or a t
exi t.
Aut oma ti o n nf fare colle c tion systems is generally
jus tified for economic reasons involving both eco -
nomy on personnel and fraud prevention and in most
cases such a ut oma ti c sys t ems perform, besides their
essential functions, accounting operatio ns and
statistical functions.
There is no fundamental theoret i cal difference bet -
ween au t oma tic fare collec ti on systems as app li ed
to different typ es of "uti li ti es " such as an urban
tr an spo rt a ti on ne two rk, an int ercity transportation
netwo rk, a t o ll road o r a car par k . Ye t the sys t em
design may be very different acco r ding t o the par-
t icu lar cha r acte ri st i cs and operational rules of
the ut ilit y concerned .
These characterist ic s may be c lassifi ed in five
general grou ps
- geogra phi ca l structure charac teri zing the space
distribution of ticket dispensers and access
and/or exit ga t es ,
- functional complexity wh i ch is def ined by the
fare structure and ope rati ona l ru les . Fare
s tru cture may range from s t rictly flat fare to
d iff e r ential fare f un ct i on of origi n and des ti-
na ti on, but a simple f a re structure may cor r es -
pond t o comp l ex opera ti onal rules,
- required ease of adap t a ti on to va ri ations of fare
structures and oper atio nal rules,
ava il abi lit y constraints,
 technological and ergonomic co nst raints depending
in particul ar on type of co nt act betwee n eq uip -
ment and public .
In 19 70 t he Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens
(R.A.T.P. - Paris Tr anspor t ation Au th or it y) decided
to implement an int egra ted a ut omatic far e collection
system f or its urb an network, the Par is ~etro.
Th i s decision followed on t he first year o f opera-
tion of a somewhat similar sys t em develope d by
Compagnie Gene r a l e d'Automatisme for the rapid
transit system o f R.A.T .P .
The system for the urban netwo rk had to pe r fo rm
the followi ng tasks
- Sale of all types of tickets used both on the
urban ne two rk and through booked t o th e rapid
transit system. This sale invo lv es a t present
booking office vending machines and ca n be ex-
tended to passenger operated vending machines,
Checking of tickets at entrance and (in (ertain
cases) at exit and operation of automa ti c gates ,
Full accoun t ing of sales and cash received,
Sales and tr affic sta t istics ,
Cl ock in and out of s t ati on personne l,
- Transmission to the s t ations of miscellaneous
information,
- Reporting on t he genera l operation of the system
itself .
The sys tem in its pr ese nt stage involves 350 sta-
t io ns in an a rea of about 11 0 sq km. It comprises
1600 ga t es and 360 booking office vending machines
and is expandable t o a t o tal of over 4500 gates
and vending machines.
The fare struc ture of the urban netwo r k is essen-
t ia ll y flat fare but covers a number of different
ti cket t ypes in cluding a weekly ti cke t wit h r a t he r
comp lex opera ti on rules. In add it ion th e system
has to p r ocess t hr ough tickets f r om the urban zone
to the rapid transit zo ne with a zonal fare s tru c-
tur e .
The ti cke t processed by the system is magnetically
encoded ib a ceutral track and exis t s in two forms,
light ca rdb oar d ticket for shor t time use (up to I
week ) and plastic card for seasons and passes
(fig. I). The codi ng inc lud es 64 significant bits
and heading and end sequences. This ticket is id en-
ti ca l to the ti cke t used o n the r apid transit
system .
The system had t o meet the foll owing cha r acteris -
tics or constra int s :
- the gates and vend ing machi nes are d i strib ut ed
in a la r ge number of stations wit h a re l at i vely
small number of equipment per s tati on ,
t he f are s tructure and opera ting ru les o f th e
ti ckets are relatively comp l ex ,
the system has t o be easily adaptab le to modifi-
ca ti on of fares, opera t i ng rules and a ll ow intr o -
duction of new ty pes of tickets,
the system has t o operate 20 hours a day with a
very high level of availability .
System design and cos t /performance op ti miza ti on
Due to t he complex it y of the opera ti ona l rul es and
fare s tru c ture a nd t he necessi t y of being able
easily t o implement modifications it was no t feasi-
ble with the technology exis tin g at the ti me t o
design gates and vending machines as stand - alone
equipme nt. On the o ther hand the requirement of
practically real time information gathering f o r
accounting and statisti cal purposes a nd general
system monitoring made a data ce ntr a lising link
necessary eve n in the case of s t a nd - a l one equip -
ment. Th us it was found necessary t o link both
gates and vending machines t o more o r less ce ntra-
lized logic and da t a hand ling processors perfo r-
ming decision taking , check ing and data gathering
o perations. This link being necessary it was deci-
ded for eco nom i ca l reasons to res tri ct t he inter -
nal log i c of the station peripherals (gates a nd
vending mach ines) to th e min imum necessary for the
performance of s t rictly l ocal f unctions and have
them work in a purely s l ave mode .
The opera tion of a cer tain number of peripherals
as s l aves t o a common logic processor has th e d r aw -
back of reflecting a ny failure of this processor
on all the periphera ls concerned . Thus a cer t a in
amount of redundance on the common processors l evel
and p r ovis i on of automatic sw it chover from f ai led
to stand by equipment was necessary. \~ere one
processor i s installed on a given si t e this redun-
dance results in a doubling of equipme nt. If, on
the other hand several processors are installed
on th e same site a lesser amount of redundanc y may
be sufficient to meet the ava il ab ility requirements .
The number of peripherals which can be tied to the
same processor is limit ed by the existence of a
maximum response time to peripheral cal ls. Taking
in accoun t maximum passenger flow and expec ted
processing time per t icket it is possible to compu te
the max i mum number of s t a ti on peripherals f o r a
given type of computer.
Obviously t he total processor cos t will be minimi -
zed by tying the maximum possib l e number of peri-
pherals t o the same processor. This effect i s e n-
hanced by the fact that usually larger processors
are of a l esser relativ e cost than smaller ones .
On the other hand the reduction of the number of
processors results in an i ncrease of the length of
the i nt e r con nection lines between processor and
peripherals and thus in an in crease of the cabling
cos t.
A further point to take in account is the mainte-
nance cos t of the pr ocessors as t he necessary main-
tenance manpower is a function not on l y of pr oces -
so r number bu t also of the number of the processor
si t es.
Based on th e above considerations, and taking in
account first install a ti on cost inc luding cabling,
mainte nance costs and ease of mai nt ena nce and ope -
ration, a cos t efficiency optimization procedure
led to a globa l system design where all the neces-
sary processo rs are concen trat ed on the same s ite,
each station peripheral being connec ted to a proces -
sor couple r by a single t e le pho ne pair .
344
The processors themsel ves are or gan ized in a two
l evel hierar chy the lower level being devoted t o
the handling of the individual peripheral opera-
tions, th e higher l evel performing i nformat i on ga-
th ering , account ing and statistics.
SYSTE ~ DESCRIPTION
As outlined above the global system is co mpri sed
of three l eve ls of equipmen t (cf. fig. 2).
- A peripheral level consisting of the station pe-
ri?herals,
A fa re col l ec ti on pr ocess ing level co nsisting of
the fare collec ti on pr ocesso r gro up s , each group
including a computer , interface and perip heral
buffers,
A data co lle c ti on processing le ve l.
The connection bet ween station peripherals and th e
fare co ll ect i on processor level proceeds via de d i-
cated telephone pairs group ed in standard tel e phone
cables la id in the r ailway tunnels.
The connect i on between th e fare collect i on proces -
sors and the data collection process ing le ve l is
made through a specially designed multip l exe r wor -
king o n a compute r channel t o chan nel link .
Station per iphera ls
At the prese nt stage the station peripherals com-
prise booking office vending machines and automa -
tic gates . Provisio n is made for future in co rp ora-
tion of pass enge r operated vending machi ne s.
The booking office vending mach ine (fig.3) per-
forms the following functions :
Cu tti ng, encoding and printing of cardboard
ti cke t s from roll stock wi t h non encoded
track,
Encod in g of season plastic tickets ,
Reading and printout of content of controver -
sial ti ckets ,
Personnel bagde r ead i ng for clock in and clock
ou t,
Prin t out of mi sce ll anous information.
Both ti cke t price and ticket code are sent by th e
AFC processor in resp onse t o a se l ec tion message
coming f r om the vend ing machine.
The au t omatic ga te consists of ga t e mechanism and
assoc i ated ticket r eade r (fig.4). The reader
reads the magnet ic code on an inse rt ed ticket,
reencodes the ticket if va li d and reads the newly
encoded message. The code check ing bot h before a nd
afte r r ee ncod ing and the tr ans mi ssion of the new
message to be encoded are performed by the AFC
processo r. If the ti cket was or i gi na ll y va lid and
has been cor rectly reen coded th e compu ter trans-
mi t s t o th e reader a gate unl ock ing order, if not
the ga te r emai ns l ocked.
Each ope r at ion cycle of the station pe r iphe r a ls
thus involves a sequ ence of bilateral int e rchan-
ges between pe riph era l and processors. The messa-
ges are fixed for ma t and normally include a 64
b it da t a sequence and a 10 bit status o r order
sequence plus starting a nd e nd ing f lags . To avoid
345
unnecessary buffering, th e messagffia re sent on the
line a t th e normal r ead ing speed of the ticket
r eade r which is abo ut 800 bits/second . The special-
ly designed line modems allow a tr a nsmissi£~ rang e
of about 20 km with an e rr or of about 1.10 per
bit on standard telepho ne cables in railway tunnels.
The message exchange sequences are shown fig.s.
AFC pr ocesso rs
Each AFC processor group includes as stated above
an AFC computer, a coupling interface system and
as many peripheral buffers as there are connected
peripherals .
The buffer performs th e following functions :
- ~essage che cking by heading and end flag detec-
tion,
- Buffering the interchanged messages to allow for
difference in speeds between line transmissi on
and computer input,
- Transmitting the message t o th e comp uter ~n a
constan t or der irrespective of inse rti on sense
of ticke t int o th e reader.
The coupl ing interf ace inco rp orates a hardware
scanner wh i ch continuously scans a ll the buffer
addresses . Each time a buffer contai ning an inco-
ming message is found the scanner stops and th e
buffered data are tr a ns fered into the co mputer
which performs the ne cessary processing and outputs
the an swer message t o be rel oade d into the buf fe r.
The AFC comp u t er is a standard 16 bit word computer
wi th 8K words memo r y a nd a memo r y cycle of 0,9/us.
Data co ll ec ting pro cessor
The data col lect i ng processor is a standard machine
of the same ty pe as t he AFC processors but with a
40K words memory and a com pr ehensive set of stan-
dard peripherals including disc, t ape, line prin-
ter and CRT display and keyboard .
The int erc hange between the data co ll ec tion proces-
sor and th e AFC pro cessors takes place through a
channel multiplexer working under the control of
the data collection processor. The latter interro-
ga t es cyc licall y all th e AFC pr ocessors (in c luding
stand - bys) by individual addressing and also trans-
mits necessary in formatio n to these.
STAND-BYS AND AUTO~~TIC SWITCHOVER
None of th e equipment spec i fic to a given periphe-
ral is redundant as the multiplicity of equipment
in a given station is in itself sufficient to cater
for passenger flow in case of an individual failure.
On th e o ther hand all equipment common to a number
of peripherals has built in redundancy with provi-
sion fo r automatic switchover from failed t o stand -
by .
The block diagram of t he switchover system is shown
fig . 6.
The interface system of each AFC processor group is
fully doubled , each of the interfaces feed ing a se-
parate bus to the buffers .
The operation of the int erface is monitored by the
AFC compu t e r and the latter controls the sw i tch -
over in case an alarm is detected .
The AFC processor level includes 2 stand -by compu-
ters which are fully banalized so that they are
able to r eplace any of the ten normal AFC compu-
ters and also each other . Th e operation of each
compu ter is monitored by an externa l watch dog
and any failure is reported to the two stand - bys
which control interface switch- over f rom failed
to stand-by computer. Once a stand-by processor
has taken th e role of a no rmal processor it also
moni t ors and controls the operation of the corres -
ponding interfaces.
In normal operation th e stand-by AFC compu ter s are
idle and may be used to perform checking opera-
tions on any peripheral line by using an adress
through the stand- by interface and excluding this
address from the normal interface scan .
Both in idle and switched condition the state of
each stand-by is monitored by the other.
The data collecting processor level is fully re-
dundant and comp ris es 2 identical computer systems.
\fuereas the operation cycles of station peripherals
are completely independent so that switchover from
normal to stand - by processor does not involve trans-
fer of past history this is not th e case for the
data co l lec tion pro cessing level since statistics
and , stil l more important, accounting are based on
past history. It is thus necessary that both data
collection compu t ers (DCP) possess at any time the
whole of the past history of operation . This is
obtai ned by having both computers performing in
parallel acquisition, processing and storage of
the data transferred from the AFC computers.
The transfer is controlled by one of the DCP com-
puters operating as pilot and interrogating the
AFC computers. The second DCP computer operating
as slave performs its acquisition operations
following the tranfers tri ggered by the pilot.
Synchronizing of both computers is effected by
exchange of information on a computer to computer
link.
Both computers are equipped with watch dog moni -
tors and these are cross connected to keep each
computer informed of the state of the other . Any
failure of the pilot results in the slave taking
over pilot operation and continuing data acquisi -
tion and monitoring without any break .
At restarting a DCP computer after a failure an
updating procedure enables the pilot to transf er
the past history data to th e restarted compu ter.
The mu ltiplexer system \~hich constitu tes the con-
nection link between AFC and DCP compute rs is also
fully redundant and is comprised of t wo indepen-
dent logic and switching units . The monitoring
of operation of t he multipl exer is performed by
the pilot DCP computer.
Any transfer failure after two tri a ls results in
the pilot controlling switchover to the stand - by
multiplexer. If transfer failure still occurs on
the same AFC computer address the normal interro-
gating cycle is resumed the correspondi ng AFC com-
puter being considered as failed.
At both the AFC and DCP level all elements common
to normal and stand - by equipment (ie opera ti on mo-
nitoring and switching) have been designed for ma-
ximal reliability . In addition switch - over l inks
are galvanical ly isolated by using sealed reed
relays.
The switch-over times are of the order of 1 second
for AFC computer switch-over, about 300 ms for AFC
interface switch - over , 5 ms for multiplexer switch-
over and 1 second for transfer of pi l ot operation
of DCP.
OPERATION OF THE SYSTE'1
Following an order placed at the beginn ing of 19 7 1
the system has been designed and prototype tested
by the middle of 197 2. The system design has been
done by Compagnie Generale d'Automatisme (C.G.A.)
which has been responsible for the whole project
on a turn - key contract basis. C.G.A. was assisted
by Societe Software et Engineering de Syst~mes
d'Informatique et d'Automatique (S . E.S . A.) for the
software part. The electron i cs of the system for
both station equipmen t and computer interfacing
and coupling have been designed and built by
C. G.A. while the mechan i ca l parts of station
equipment are by CAMP (Compagnie d ' Apparei ls
~ecaniques de Precision). The computers are
C. I.I. model 10.020 throughout .
The automatic gates and the AFC processing l evel
have been installed and put in opera tion from
October 1973· to .Iu ly 1974. The DCP leve 1 has been
progressively put in ope r ation from July to
September 1974 and is now fully operational. The
booking office machines have been put in operation
starting September 1974 .
The operation of the system is satisfactory, an
overall availabi lit y of 99,6 % per gate having been
reached by July 1974 and it is expected to obtain
99,9% in the future. The performance of redundancy
and automatic switch - over is very good and the ope -
ration of the processing levels is practically trou -
ble free.
GENE~~L DESIGN CONSIDE~~TIONS
As stated above the general design of the Paris
~etro Urban Network System results essent iall y
from important characteristics or requirements.
- Complex fare structure and operational rules
- Dense distribution of relatively small stations
- Requirement for real time data ga t hering
- State of technol ogy at time of des i gn.
It is perfectly obvious that the preferred design
might be quite different for a differen t set of
characteristics .
Thus the AFC system for the Paris Rap id Transit
System designed and built by Compagnie Generale
d'Automatisme in 1969, though fu ll y compatible for
.ho user with the Urban Ne t work , has a somewhat
346
different structure. This sys t em performing the
same AFC tasks is installed on a linear network of
l arge and more wide l y spaced sta ti ons, the fare
s tru c tur e being differential fare with ent r ance
and exit ticket checki ng . The structur e used is
s t atio n centra liz ed , the AFC processing being per -
formed by a commo n s t a ti on processor (two proces ·
sors in case of very large stat i ons). Redundancy
is obt ai ned by use of one s t and by processo r per
station. Inf orma tion gathering is t hro ugh a stan-
dard 40 K bits/second data l oop with intermediate
amplification at each station.

At th e o th er end of the spectrum th e Mon tr ea l AFC

System built by CAMP and C. G. A. in 1967 for a
purely flat fare ne t work with simple operat i onal
rules and no data cen t ralisati on is comprised of
entirely stand alone eq u ipment .

On the other hand the state of technology has chan-

ged drastically with the advent of microp r ocesso r s.
Th ese allow th e desi gn of stand alone peripheral
equipment with pr ogrammed l ogic for relatively
complex processing a t a cos t competi t ive with cen-
t ralized logic systems. But unfortunately the mi-
c r oprocessor does not so l ve all system problems.
The problem of data acquisition sti ll r equires a
c entralising link with its usu a l compe titi on
between automatic transmission (either re a l t ime
or deferred) and more or less manua l gathering of
local recordings.

Possibly more important s till is the problem of

ease of modification of fare s tru ctu r e or opera-
tin g rules which in case of programmed stand alone
equipment e nt ai ls modification of local programs PARIS METRO AFC SYSTEM
on a very l arge number of geographica ll y wide l y
Bloc diagram (f i g 2)
distributed peripherals, a task made stil l more
formidable by the fact that the change has gene -
rally t o be effec ted overnight.
O;;ah; collection proc essing

Thus even with the advent of t his new and ve r y

powerful technology the a priori choice of a
sys tem st r uc tur e for a given network remai ns im-
possible and a detailed system study taking 1n
account all of the relevant characteristics re-
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347
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348

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