Updated: Making the Move into Ticketing and Payments
Such major trip-planning app providers as Moovit, Transit and Google Maps see ticketing and payments as an important new service and for some, it’s one of the last steps toward creating true MaaS platforms.
Taiwan’s Dominant Transit Purse Struggles with New E-Payments Landscape
EasyCard Corp. remains the dominant contactless stored-value card in Taiwan, boasting market shares of nearly three-quarters of transit fare payments and retail transactions nationally amid competition from three other contactless closed-loop cards that vie for transit and low-value retail transactions across the island nation.
New York’s MTA OMNY Service Continues to Grow as Agency Preps Further Rollout This Year
As New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority marked the two-year anniversary since launching the first phase of its high-profile OMNY open-loop fare payments rollout in May 2019, transactions continue to grow.
Riders were tapping for more than 17% of all rides on the authority’s massive subway system and for around 14% on the entire system, both subway and buses. That’s according to figures released by the MTA to Mobility Payments around mid-June. As of then, the agency said customers had tapped for a total of more than 93 million rides since the service launched.
Pros & Cons of Open Loop: Transit Agencies Face Choice
While the Covid-19 pandemic has slashed transit agency budgets and delayed rollouts, it has accelerated the trend for the agencies to enable their customers to pay fares with contactless EMV credit and debit cards and other electronic payments.
Italian Transit Operators Expand Use of cEMV, but Cash Difficult to Unseat
Major Italian public transit operators, including those in Rome and Milan, see contactless EMV payments as an important option for customers, even enabling them to use their contactless bank cards in place of monthly passes. And the operators have bigger plans for the technology, as well.
Boston Authority Makes Aggressive Push to Banish Cash On Board Buses
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, or MBTA, in Boston plans to completely do away with cash fare payments on its various transport modes when it rolls out its massive new fare collection system.
London Prepares for Major New Fare-Collection Contract
Transport for London, which runs the largest open-loop fare payments system in the world, is gearing for a major upgrade of its revenue-collection contract, giving the authority its first account-based ticketing system.
Google Expands Parking Payments to Another City as it Continues to Build Google Pay Fare Hub
Google will enable users to pay for parking with U.S.-based parking locator and payments vendor ParkMobile within its Google Pay app starting this month in Atlanta, GA, as the search giant continues to seek to make its payments app a transit-ticketing and parking-fare-payments hub.
Washington, D.C.’s, SmarTrip Latest Closed-Loop Fare Card Added to Pays Wallet
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or WMATA, as expected, has added its closed-loop fare card SmarTrip to Google Pay, following support by Apple Pay for the card last year. The launch Tuesday of SmarTrip for Google Pay is the latest move by an NFC wallet provider to sign up transit authorities globally for its payments service. Wallet providers, such as Google Pay and Apple Pay, are vying to add more fare cards to their payments services to attract more users and transactions.
Transit Agency Sells Passes for Bikes and Buses through Trip-Planning App, though Cash Still Reigns
RTC of Southern Nevada, the main transit agency serving Las Vegas and the surrounding region, now enables customers to buy passes for bike share in addition to tickets for buses through the trip-planning Transit app. Although the implementation is relatively small, project backers say Las Vegas is the first U.S. city to launch bike share and transit passes in the same app.