HERMITAGE The local public bus system is going high-tech.

Mercer County Regional Council of Governments is getting nearly a $275,000 state and federal transportation grant to buy digital technology to aid bus drivers and passengers.

The technology will be placed on its Shuttle service, which has short routes.

COG oversees the bus service.

Among the upgrades will be smart cards for fares that will be swiped like a credit card. Another perk will be a GPS system, saidKim DiCintio, executive director of COG.

The GPS can be used by passengers to track where the bus,DiCintio said.

Yet another perk is the buses will have an electronic voice to tell passengers what the next stop will be. And drivers will have computer tablets that can track passenger volume.

Bids already have gone out to buy and install the technology, so the upgrades will be this year, she said.

In recent years the agency had to be nimble in its operations. For years public school children were charged 25 cents for a one-way ride. But last year the service bumped the price up to 60 cents.

We lost a lot of students because of that,DiCintio said.

In January student rates were restored to 25 cents.

And we have no anticipation of raising the student rates again, she said.

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Shuttle buses getting up to speed on technology - Sharonherald