The availablity of publicly accessible natural gas refueling infrastructure is vital to increasing the number of low-emission CNG vehicle operating in the South Coast AQMD. In the past, access to this publicly accessible infrastructure often required the use of a dedicated fuel card offered by the provider of the alternative fuel. This required users to maintain accounts with multiple fuel providers to ensure full access to the network of available infrastructure. Cardreader systems are now available that allow use of most common credit and debit cards. Thus, users of a CNG refueling station equipped with this ype of universal card reader have multiple payment options available to them. The availability of the multi-card reader removes a barrier to users of CNG stations and increases the attactiveness of CNG to potential users.
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The City of Covina solicited competitive bids from electronic point of sale equipment vendors. The FuelMaster system, offered by Syn-Tech Systems, Inc. was selected based upon its ease of maintenance and added feature of key operation in addition to credit card. The City is thus able to issue keys to its employees to enable refueling of their fleet vehicles. In addition, the City established merchant accounts with the major credit card networks: Nova Information Systems (MasterCard and Visa), American Express, Voyager, Discover, and Wright Express.
The City of Covina constructed a compressed natural gas (CNG) refueling station at their city yard located at 534 N. Barranca Avenue in 1993. Since 1998, the station has been open to the public from 7:00 am until 4:30 pm, Monday through Thursday, and 7:00 am to 3:30 pm on alternate Fridays, consistent with hours of operation of the City. Fleet vehicles from the City of Azusa, Covina Valley Unified School District, Bonita Unified School District, as well as CNG vehicle commuters utilize the station. The throughput averages approximately 2,000 gasoline equivalent gallons each month. As of October 1, 2004, the Southern California Gas Company ceased offering billing services for the station. To maintain the public access component of the station, it became necessary to install a new electronic point-of-sale card reader. To ensure continued availability of CNG to users that rely upon their station, the City of Covina partnered with the MSRC to retrofit the existing station with a universal card reader.
The multi-card reader system is fully operational at this time. The City experienced minor technical difficulties initially, bet all were corrected by the installation team.
Equipment installation began on September 30, 2004 and installation, configuration, and troubleshooting were completed on October 8, 2004. Sales to the public commenced on October 15th, 2004.