By Denis Cuff

STAFF WRITER

BART will start selling discount train tickets to teenage students over the Internet this September in an attempt to introduce more young people to public transit.

The tickets have been sold for years at many intermediate and high schools, but BART officials said sales were disappointing, in part because financially struggling public schools were hard-pressed to handle the extra work of selling the tickets on campus. Tickets sales were much higher at private schools.

In a year-long pilot program to begin in September, students at participating schools who want tickets will be issued an individual code number that allows them to pay half price for up to four orange tickets a month. Each ticket is worth $32 in fares on BART.

"This is aimed at making it easier for students to purchase the discount tickets," said BART spokesman Linton Johnson. "All we're basically asking of the schools is to verify that the teens wanting to buy the tickets are registered students."

Participating schools will provide information to BART about the students. BART will then e-mail information to students about how to order the tickets online through a vendor that will oversee the sales.

Students must be between 13 and 18 and must limit the ticket use to weekday trips to and from school or school-related activities. Tickets will be mailed to the students.

Johnson said teens interested in the ticket program

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should contact their school administrators for information. Administrators can contact BART at 510-464-6406 to get more information.

BART contacted 148 schools currently enrolled in the ticket program and found that 119 of them were in favor of the new option to buy over the Internet.

Contact Denis Cuff at 925-943-8267 or dcuff@bayareanewsgroup.com