Section+D

Section D


 * 3Ms – Money**

Ultimately the success of the initiation of Tresto to the GTA transit system relies mostly on government funds. A large part of the government subsidies will be spent on installing the card scanners on to the public transit vehicles. Another part of the funding would come from the company itself where it is spent on developing the software for the card and scanner itself in terms of how they interact. The private funding would be spent mostly on the Tresto card technology itself. These technologies would include the security system installed on the card and scanner to prevent identity and credit theft and fraud, the technology for scanning and identifying the information stored on the card, the technology for storing credit and identity information on the card, the technology for how the scanner interact to a central database or server, and the technology for calculating fare fees and charging the fees on the card. The rest of the private funding would be spent on developing and assembling the hardware itself.


 * 3Ms – Materials**

One of the most important technologies that are needed in the development of the product is the software and technology for the electronic card to interact with the card scanner. The card needs to have a memory device in order to store information about the customer and fare information and this information has be sent to the card scanner with encryption or other security methods so that only the scanner can read the information in order to prevent credit and identity theft. Another technology needed is the security method or protocol implemented on the Tresto card so that the information store inside can not be easily stolen or read. A database storing the information of all the customers is also needed so that different customers are charged differently. Examples of this would be that students and elders are charged a lower price than adults. Another example would be credit card information would have to be stored to the database in order to help the customers put money into their cards. Since customers have the option to charge money to their card online an identification system is also needed to identify the Tresto cards when the customers use their cards. An example of the identification system that can be used is the serial numbers on each card being used to match the information on the online database so that the exact amount of money stored on each card can be calculated. In addition a software algorithm has to be developed in order to calculate and charge the transportation fees accordingly. A challenge that the algorithm need to over come is when customers get a discounted rate when they use two or more transportation systems, such as riding the local bus to the GO station.

Hardware for obvious reasons is also important when developing the Tresto card system. The right amount and type of material in developing the card is needed to ensure that the scanning and charging process works perfectly. This means that both the scanner and the card have to transmit a certain type of radio frequency that cannot be interrupted easily by other electronic devices such as cell phones or mp3 players. The scanning range of the card scanner would also have to be strong enough so that it can scan the card from a certain distance and through other material such as if the card is inside a wallet. Lastly physical materials has to be chosen carefully in making the card so that the card cannot be bent or rendered unusable easily.


 * Search engine optimization**

One of the most important things to consider when doing e-business is make sure that customers can find information about your company and the products you sell easily either through your company website or online search engines that leads to your website. Studies have shown that more and more people are using search engines to find information they are looking for and most of these people are not very patient when it comes to looking through pages of search results. In most cases online users would only look at the first to second page of search results can choose from these pages one website which they think might provide the information they need. To a company conducting e-business this means that if they are not on the first or second page of search results of popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo!, then chances are that only a minority of the users would find the company’s website. This can lead to a loss in sales since there are less potential customers visiting the company’s website. In order to improve the search result rankings a company can follow a number of steps and implement different strategies to make itself more well known to potential customers. The steps or methods are as the following: - The title of the website should show the name of the company, the industry it is in, and also the location in which the company conducts its business. - If possible the company should submit the URL to popular search engine through methods such as paid submission. Paid submission is basically the company paying the search engine company in order for the URL to appear in the sponsored link section in the search engine. - The website should be updated frequently so the search engines would look for the information that is updated and update its own information about the website - The company should try to have other websites provide links to the company’s website. This is similar to a referral by other websites so that the company’s website can gain creditability - Finally there are software tools that can be used to assess the effectiveness of the methods that are used to improve the search rankings. An example of the software tools is Google analytics with shows time graphs of people visiting the company’s website through Google’s search engine. For Tresto website we will try to implement all of these methods in order to increase the search ranking of our website and ideally this can lead to more potential customers visiting our website which in turn can lead to more sales.

"McGuinty announces details of $9-billion GTA transit projects." Homepage - 680 News - ALL NEWS RADIO. 01 Apr. 2009. The Canadian Press. 5 Apr. 2009 .
 * References:**

Kalinowski, Tess. "GTA transit gets $9B jump-start." TheStar.com | GTA | GTA transit gets $9B jump-start. 02 Apr. 2009. Toronto Star. 5 Apr. 2009 .

Mackenzie, Robert. "TTC improves access in ten subway stations." Transit Toronto. 5 Apr. 2009. Transit Toronto. 5 Apr. 2009 .