Canada’s BC Transit Plans to Launch Open-Loop Payments, as Cubic Seeks to Keep Pace in SaaS-Ticketing Market
Canadian transit authority BC Transit has announced that in “coming months” it will prepare to launch open-loop payments, as its vendor, Cubic Transportation Systems, upgrades and tests its software-as-a-service fare platform Umo to make the technology available.
Cubic has enabled open loop for years for large transit agencies via its enterprise business, featuring its Urban Mobility Back Office. But it has struggled to add open-loop capability to its SaaS-based Umo platform–as it seeks to keep pace with rival Masabi in the SaaS-ticketing market
In-Depth: Canadian Transit Agencies See Low Adoption of Open-Loop Payments
Despite a high-profile launch recently of domestic debit card acceptance in Canada and more open-loop rollouts there, Canadian transit agencies say they have no plans to promote open-loop payments over their close-loop cards.