Project overview

This website provides technical documentation for the benefits application from the California Integrated Travel Project (Cal-ITP).

Cal-ITP Benefits is a web application that enables digital eligibility verification and enrollment for transit benefits onto transit riders’ existing contactless debit and credit cards.

The development of this publicly-accessible client is being managed by Caltrans’ California Integrated Travel Project (Cal-ITP), in partnership with the California Department of Technology (CDT). From the Cal-ITP site:

Our Cal-ITP Benefits web application streamlines the process for transit riders to instantly qualify for and receive discounts, starting with Monterey-Salinas Transit (MST), which offers a half-price Senior Fare. Now older adults (65+) who are able to electronically verify their identity are able to access MST’s reduced fares without the hassle of paperwork.

We worked with state partners on this product launch, and next we’re working to bring youth, lower-income riders, veterans, people with disabilities, and others the same instant access to free or reduced fares across all California transit providers, without having to prove eligibility to each agency.

Cal-ITP Benefits is open-source software that is designed, developed, and maintained by Compiler LLC on behalf of Caltrans, Cal-ITP, and our agency partners.

Current work

We do sprint planning and track day-to-day work on our Project Board.

Product roadmap

Our product roadmap captures what we’re currently building, what we’ve built, and what we plan to build in the future. We update it at the end of each quarter or when priorities change.

timeline
    title Cal-ITP Benefits Product Roadmap

%% Cal-ITP Benefits Epics (2025)
          section 2025

          Q1<br>Complete
        : Front-end enhancements and optimization
        : Deploy in-person enrollments
        : Utilize CDT Identity Gateway connection library

          Q2<br>Complete

          Q3<br>Complete
        : Support for multiple transit processors (Enghouse)

          Q4<br>Complete
        : Support for additional card schemes<br>(Discover and American Express)
        : UI enhancements to help the application scale
        : Eligibility standards research
        : Operational enhancements for more efficient agency onboarding

%% Cal-ITP Benefits Epics (2026)

        section 2026

        Q1<br>Now
        : Core infrastructure improvements to support app scaling
        : Regional rider enrollment (Phase 1)

        Q2<br>Planned
        : In-person enrollment for U.S. Veterans with disabilities
        : In-person enrollment for CalFresh cardholders
        : Self-serve eligibility check for U.S. Veterans with disabilities (VA)
        : Regional rider enrollment for transit providers using Switchio

        Q3<br>Projected
        : In-person enrollment for SSI / SSDI
        : Identity verification and eligibility confirmation using Socure
        : Self-serve eligibility verification using a verifiable credential (SSDI)
        : Regional rider enrollment for multiple transit providers using Littlepay
        : In-person enrollment for young people
        : Cal-ITP Benefits Administrator<br>(agency configuration by account managers)

        Q4<br>Projected
        : Support for additional transit processor (INIT)
        : Self-serve eligibility check for U.S. Veterans (CA DMV)
        : Self-serve eligibility check for individuals with disabilities (CA DMV)
        : Alert system for application outages and events

%%{
  init: {
    'logLevel': 'debug',
    'theme': 'default' ,
    'themeVariables': {
      'cScale0': 'orange',
      'cScaleLabel0': 'black',
      'cScale1': 'yellow',
      'cScaleLabel1': 'black'
    }
  }
}%%

Adoption by transit providers

The following California transit providers have adopted Cal-ITP Benefits. The benefit options available to eligible riders are denoted by a green checkmark.

Transit provider	Initial launch date	Older adults	Medicare cardholders	U.S. Veterans	CalFresh cardholders	Agency card
Monterey-Salinas Transit	12/2021	✅	✅	✅	―	✅
Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District	10/2023	✅	✅	―	―	✅
Sacramento Regional Transit District	10/2024	✅	✅	✅	―	―
Nevada County Connects	03/2025	✅	✅	✅	―	―
Ventura County Transportation Commission	10/2025	✅	✅	―	―	―
San Luis Obispo Regional Transit	12/2025	✅	✅	―	―	―
El Dorado Transit Authority	01/2026	✅	✅	―	―	―
Redding Area Bus Authority	02/2026	✅	✅	✅	✅	―
City of San Luis Obispo	04/2026 (target)	*	*	*	*	*
Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District	05/2026 (target)	*	*	*	*	*
Santa Barbara County Association of Governments	06/2026 (target)	*	*	*	*	*
City of Camarillo	07/2026 (target)	*	*	*	*	*
City of Roseville	07/2026 (target)	*	*	*	*	*
City of Simi Valley	07/2026 (target)	*	*	*	*	*
City of Thousand Oaks	07/2026 (target)	*	*	*	*	*
Gold Coast Transit Distict	07/2026 (target)	*	*	*	*	*
Valley Express	07/2026 (target)	*	*	*	*	*

Supported enrollment pathways

The Cal-ITP Benefits app supports the following enrollment pathways that use the corresponding eligibility verification methods:

Enrollment pathway	Eligibility verification	Status	Launch
Older adults	Login.gov ID Proofed	Live	08/2022
Agency cards	Eligibility API	Live	11/2022
Veterans	Veteran Confirmation API	Live	09/2023
Low-income	CalFresh Confirm API	Live	07/2024
Medicare cardholders	Blue Button API	Live	09/2024

Technical and security details

benefits is a Django 5 web application. The application talks to one or more Eligibility Verification APIs or claims providers. These APIs and the application itself are designed for privacy and security of user information:

• The API communicates with signed and encrypted JSON Web Tokens containing only the most necessary of user data for the purpose of eligibility verification
• The application requires no user accounts and stores no information about the user
• Interaction with the application is anonymous, with only minimal event tracking for usage and problem analysis

Running the application locally is possible with Docker and Docker Compose. Hosting information.

The user interface and content is available in both English and Spanish. Additional language support is possible via Django’s i18n and l10n features.

The application communicates with external transit processor vendors via API calls and others like the Identity Gateway via redirects, both over the public internet. See all the system interconnections.

Infrastructure

The Benefits application is deployed to Microsoft Azure. Traffic is encrypted between the user and the application, as well as between the application and external systems.

The network is managed by the California Department of Technology (CDT), who provide a firewall and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection.

You can find more technical details on our infrastructure page.

Data storage

The Benefits application doesn’t collect or store any user data directly, and we minimize the information exchanged between systems. The following information is temporarily stored in an encrypted session in the user’s browser:

• The user’s progress through an enrollment pathway
• Credentials for interacting with the eligibility verification services

Sensitive user information exists in the following places:

• To enroll for reduced fares as an older adult, U.S. Veteran, or Calfresh cardholder, riders need to provide personal information to Login.gov.
• To enroll for reduced fares as a Medicare cardholder, riders need to provide personal information to Medicare.gov.
• Eligible riders need to provide their contactless credit or debit card information to one of our transit processors, to register their card for reduced fares.

None of that information is accessible to the Benefits system/team.

Learn more about the security/privacy practices of some of our third-party integrations:

• Amplitude
• Littlepay
• Switchio
• Login.gov

Benefits collects analytics on usage, without any identifying information. You can find more details on our analytics page.

Transit processors

The Benefits application integrates with transit processors to securely register credit or debit cards. This application currently supports the following transit processors:

• Littlepay
• Switchio

Practices

Dependabot immediately notifies the team of vulnerabilities in application dependencies.

Upon doing new major integrations, features, or architectural changes, the Benefits team has a penetration test performed by a third party to ensure the security of the system.

All code changes are reviewed by at least one other member of the engineering team, which is enforced through branch protections.