Everybody has to understand that if transit grows, we all grow Stop Requested. This is Stop Requested. by ETA. I’m Christian.
And I’m Levi. These are real conversations with the innovators, operators, and advocates driving improvements in public transportation. Today we’re joined by Eric Khalid, segment president of detection and measurement at SPX Technologies, which includes Genfare.
We’ caught up with Eric at APTA Expo 2026 in Chicago to discuss one of the biggest challenges facing transit technology, disconnected systems. We talk about why technology providers need to work together, how better integration can improve agency operations and the rider experience, and what it takes to make those partnerships successful.
Here’s our conversation with Eric Khalid. Welcome to Stop Requested. Uh, we are. here in a- another, recording another great episode at the 2026, uh, APTA Expo Transform Conference in
Chicago. And today we’re joined by a transit celebrity, if I might say. This is, uh, CEO for Genfare, Mr. uh, Eric Khalid.
Uh, Eric, how you doing today? Good. Yourself? Good to see you. Excellent. Good to see you too, and you know, this is another APTA conference where we get to interact, uh, you know, we got to co-present at APTA, uh, Tech- Yes … in Seattle a few years back, and we talk about a, an amazing implementation we did at, uh, Palm Tran- Yeah … of a robust, uh, fare technology, system. Almost every technology that is out there for fare technology, we were able to source it through Genfare and, and have a very successful presentation and implementation that we were, um, you know, telling people about. But thank you for joining us this morning.
Uh, we wanna learn a little bit of, of what you guys are doing lately. Genfare, you know, here at this conference, what’s the message? What are the new things that, um, you know, you wanna let, uh, transit agencies know about? Well, one, thank you, Christian, for taking the time to have me on here. I appreciate it. Uh, ETA is, uh, an outstanding company with a long term, uh, what I would call, uh, purpose towards making transit better. So I appreciate that as an
APTA leader. It means a lot to have those people. So for me, in my role now, um, I run a detection and measurement segment for SPX Technologies, which is critical infrastructure technology companies, Genfare being one of them. And as I look across these different businesses, different industries, from underground inspection of pipes to defense to aviation and, uh, maritime in your ports and, and waterways to transportation, surface transportation with buses and rail, one thing is a constant in terms of a problem that we all need to help solve, and that is tech providers working together, to make our transit agencies or our leaders more efficient. And what I mean by that is Genfare has their
Genfare Link. ETA has their next generation Transit GPT. Um, Mosabi has their back office. Cubic has their Init. We’re working with Init. They have their back office. All of us have different real estate with different transit agencies, and what our transit agencies need is for us to work together and integrate so that they can have one system that everyone does their own job, but one system that everybody can work on to get information faster, to make their systems more efficient, to make their people more productive, and in the end game, have more riders and have a positive impact on the rider experience. So for me, that’s the problem we’re trying to solve is how do we work in a way that all of us tech providers together can make our transit agents better and have a better rider experience, to, again, have more riders on transit?
What, what does that look like for you? I- It looks, uh, three different pieces. One you start with hardware, so devices on the bus, devices on the platforms.
Think of Miami-Dade County with their BRT line. They have ticket vending machines. They have gates. They have fare boxes. They have validators. They have, uh, CAD/AVL. They have all of these tech providers, these systems. And so I need to make my device a device that can be live, each individual and be uploaded in ping two-way communication to a back office system that could then connect to another, back office system so that data can flow between all the systems behind the scenes so that any user within Miami-Dade
County can pop up their screen and get information from all the different, you know, individual systems. And that’s what we’re working on, whether we’ work on with ETA, when we partner with ETA, whether we partner with
Masabi, uh, down in Miami-Dade County, or Cubic in Washington, DC, or Init in Atlanta and so on, and so on, and so on. Working together to have one system from the transit eyes is what we’re trying to do across our 400 transit agencies.
Today’s episode is brought to you by ETA. Transit agencies rely on dozens of systems to keep service moving, but the information inside them often remains disconnected. Transit OS connects operational technology, enterprise software, and public data so agencies can bring more of their information into a shared operational context. Transit GPT gives transit professionals a practical way to use that connected data, asking questions in plain language and getting answers grounded in agency information.
Together, they help agencies see service clearly, respond faster, and deliver more reliable trips for riders. Learn more at etatransit.com.
Yeah, integration seems to be the, the key. It does, and integration means everybody has to play nice, everybody has to understand that if transit grows, we all grow, and that the world is big enough for all of us to be able to make a business out of this, and make a positive impact on all the riders in all the communities. Absolutely, because in the end, that’s what it’s about. It’s about getting more riders, as you mentioned. It’s about providing good.
service, frequent service, high quality service. And do it in a way that’s cost effective when, you know, all of our transit agencies are having constraints on budget. So you know, we worked with Kansas City just recently, uh, to launch, uh, mobile applications and payments for their, uh, World Cup. Hmm. And we, we had to do it within eight weeks.
And- Wow … the only way you can make that happen is if you’re able to work with other people’s systems, and also work with, uh, other people’s kinda timelines and be cost effective. Or else you can’t make that type of impact where we have millions of people visiting Kansas City for the World Cup and being able to get around from various different countries.
Right. And, you know, that, that’s a great example too, because there were so many people that were coming from all over the world for this one event, and you had eight weeks to stand that up? That’s correct. We had to do the same thing with Broward County. So we had Corey, who’s the CEO, and she put her, she kinda called me up and let- said, “Okay, let’s do this together.
Let’s put down all the walls. Let’s figure out a way, and let’s, let’s do it in 13 weeks.” They gave me a little bit extra. Okay. But you know, let’s get the solution for an event like the World Cup to make transit shine.
And I think the only way to do that is, quite frankly, working with other tech- providers and everybody understanding the end game and being able to integrate and work together to their own lanes of expertise.
You know, I, I wanna allude to, uh, something that you said, and, and it’s something on, on our side we’ve seen in some RFPs that are starting to come up, where transit agencies are asking for a bidirectional integration.
They are acknowledging the problem that you just mentioned. And the reality is today in transit agencies, agencies have multiple systems for multiple purposes.
They’re all siloed systems. They’re not interconnected or integrated in any way, and people have access to information and data in different departments. For one system, they don’t see things holistically, and, and everything is kinda like isolated. But I’m starting to see, or we’re starting to see on our side, some agencies are starting to like raise their hand and say, “Hey, we want integration.
Tell us how you’re gonna integrate with other systems.” And also in the past, we’ve seen different, you know, vendors or systems have been a little bit more, um, reluctant to integrate and do these things, but that’s started to change. And if I hear you correctly, you’re asking all vendors in this vendor community to, uh, start thinking about integration, be open to integration, and start having these conversations, right? That is exactly what I’m trying to advocate for, is that the tech providers, if you look at APTA Expo and look around, look how many technology providers are out there. And if each one of them is trying to add value through a software system, which if you look around, there are many software systems. If all of these software systems are supporting transit agencies, how do you have the one operator in the transit planning group, or in the scheduling group, or on the bus, or on the rail, trying to use these systems? If we can’t work together, we’re not gonna be able to make a efficient system.
for transit. Hmm. It’s just too much. Mm-hmm. So we have to work together and, be able to feel comfortable and vulnerable enough to says, “Yeah, I’m going to drop some walls, and I’m gonna let you have access, and you’re gonna let me have access, and we’re gonna do it for the be- you know, for the greater good of, that, transit agency.”
And then on the flip side, we need transit agencies to also flex. We need them to stop having terms and conditions that are uncapped, unlimited liability.
It is a non-starter for bankrupting companies. We need transit agencies to says, “I am going to have in my clause a way for people to work together and be able to be profitable that way, and not just get it for free.” So I think when you think of APTA and where APTA stands, APTA is a ecosystem of taking transit agencies, tech providers, educational communities, putting them together, and trying to have one, goal, which is a positive impact in growth of transit with our riders, our end users. So what I’m just saying is all, of us have to flex a little bit, and if we can do that, we can make real progress. Right. No, I completely agree with you there. W- was there a moment in time, uh, w- where you thought that, you know, this is necessary? Like what was the impetus to this integration push that you have now?
Um, it started when I realized everybody is gonna be going to the cloud with software systems. Hmm. All hardware providers are going to try to do more. And when you realize that that’s the nature of, of the flow of the business and technology, you realize you’re gonna have bottlenecks, and walls, and friction points in the back end of the enterprise software system. Whether it’s a bus with sensors on the bus, to scheduling, to notifying riders, to signage, to fare collection, all of those have their individual systems. And if all of them are trying to have devices that report data, you’re gonna run into that friction point, and that’s kinda the big light bulb for me. So when, when it comes to integration, and, and as you’re advocating for it, and, and I imagine, are you already integrating with some solutions out there, starting some conversations?
And, and also My second piece of that, I, I wanna learn about, you know, how you guys are already getting into the integration space. But for any of the vendors that might be interested, how do they approach Genfair or, you know, raise their hand and say, “Hey, you know, let’s have a conversation”?
I think it starts with understanding what is a problem you wanna solve, and what do you specifically wanna do? We use APIs with ETA.
It works. We use APIs with Init and Cubic and others. It works. So start with just a very basic statement of what is the scope of what you wanna do, and stay detailed, not broad brush.
If you go broad, nobody really knows what we’re talking about when we say the words integrate. Mm. Does that mean acquisition of a company? Does that mean, like- … you know, taking over the licensing of your software?
How do, how does one company make money? How does the other company make money? So being defining with real detail is, to me, the success of we’re, two companies working together. And I think the message for everybody from what I’m hearing is like i-i first, um,
Genfair is open for integration, so any of the vendors that might have not integrated yet or they are interested in, in a farther integration, like maybe, you know, they would want from your system another piece of data or maybe transfer to your system some data that they’re collecting that might add value ultimately for the final customer, you’re open to it. It’s raise your hand and start a conversation, right? Like, you know, if you don’t have that conversation and approach, uh, you know, another fellow vendor to have that integration, it’s, it’s not gonna happen. So it’s takes some initiative, too. It does.
And it also takes, uh, a very clear definition of the business model. So when you say we’re gonna integrate, what does that mean for me and what does that mean for you? ‘Cause it’s work, right?
Yes. Every type… The one thing the transit agencies have to understand, it’s still a lot of work and development to make it successful, and the liability if something goes wrong is on two parties now. So everybody’s gotta have eyes wide open on what you’re asking for when you say the word integrate.
Who makes money? What is the scope? Where’s the liability? So we just have to be open and, and get into the details of what you’re really asking for.
Thank you for doing this, uh, for the show. Oh. I think it’s, uh, great to get technology leaders to, uh, open up. Okay. So thank you.
Excellent. Yeah, thank you for being here, Eric. Eric, it was really great. Excellent conversation. Really appreciate it.