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Three transit agencies serving the Tampa Bay region, a major metropolitan area in Florida, have introduced contactless open-loop payments, offering an alternative to the region’s closed-loop card and app, as well as cash and tickets and passes. The latest open-loop service is one of the few but growing number of such projects in the U.S.
The agencies have stated no plans to eliminate cash acceptance on board their buses and other transit vehicles. PSTA gets 29% of its fare revenue from cash. That’s in addition to the 33% of revenue coming from the Flamingo Fares program.
• PSTA (St. Petersburg, Fla.)
• HART (Tampa, Fla.)
• TheBus (Hernando County, Fla.)
Three transit agencies serving the Tampa Bay region, a major metropolitan area in Florida, have introduced contactless open-loop payments, offering an alternative to the region’s closed-loop card and app, as well as cash and tickets and passes.
The open-loop launch, by Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, or PSTA; and Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, or HART; will cover buses and trolleys. A third, smaller agency, TheBus, in neighboring Hernando County, is also launching the open-loop service.
Germany-based INIT implemented the $11 million project for the three agencies, which did not only include open-loop technology. PSTA and HART will share the cost using grant funds, with a combined 347 buses and other vehicles for the two agencies equipped. TheBus’s fleet will also be upgraded and will contribute to the operational costs, said a HART spokesman.
The agencies, as of last week, began accepting credit, debit and prepaid open-loop cards and wallet credentials linked to NFC-enabled smartphones and wearables as a fare option for their riders. The agencies say they accept Visa, Mastercard and Discover brands.
The launch is one of only a handful of live open-loop projects of any size in the U.S., and is the second in Florida, following the 2019 introduction of open-loop payments by the larger Miami-Dade Transit agency.
Transit agencies in New York, Chicago, Dallas and Portland, Ore., also accept open-loop payments in the U.S. Agencies in Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston, among some others, have said they plan to enable open loop within the next year or two.
Some agencies still emphasize their closed-loop cards, viewing open-loop payments as an option mainly for visitors and other occasional riders. Fewer U.S. transit agencies have pursued a strategy of making open loop the dominant fare-payments option–but that includes the largest agency of them all, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
A spokeswoman for Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, or PSTA, based in St. Petersburg, Fla., told Mobility Payments that the new open-loop payments service is for “everyone” to use.
“We want to give our current riders more options to pay and also attract new riders; many other businesses, stores, even gas stations are using contactless payments for just ‘tapping and going,’” she said, then indicating that one of the main targets for the new service was occasional users. “Now we can make it easier for our thousands of tourists who come to visit Pinellas county, to use our transit system.”
PSTA and the two other agencies that are introducing open loop in the Tampa Bay metro area already offer a closed-loop reloadable “Flamingo Fares” card and mobile app, which works across a total of five counties. Users can also create a virtual Flamingo Fares card for the app, but it does not appear to be linked to a physical card.
Customers still get a better deal when using the closed-loop card and app with PSTA, which offers daily and monthly fare capping with Flamingo Fares, while only daily fare capping for open loop. Riders can also get concessionary discounts for seniors, disabled persons, youth and students with their Flamingo Fares card or app, but not apparently with open loop.
The riders can have their discount eligibility added to their accounts by registering at a PSTA customer service center with a valid ID. They can then tap or scan their Flamingo Fares cards or apps when boarding the bus or trolley and receive the concessionary discount automatically. The agency also offers discounts to cash users who present a proper photo ID card issued by the agency or neighboring agency or a valid student ID. Similar discounts are believed to be available from Tampa-based HART and Hernando County’s TheBus.
The Tampa Bay agencies have not said whether riders will be able to receive concessionary discounts by registering an open-loop card they can tap on validators, but that is not likely.
The agencies also haven’t stated any desire to use open-loop to help to someday eliminate cash acceptance on board their buses and other transit vehicles.
The PSTA spokeswoman said the agency collects 29% of its fare revenue from cash, although that might be an underestimate because HART said fully 65% of its fares on board its buses are from cash, while Flamingo Fares makes up the other 35%, according to the spokesman. The agencies also issue tickets and passes.
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