Transit Agency: High Bank Card Fees Would Limit Open-Loop Rollouts in U.S.

SacRT trains visa

A top revenue manager for Sacramento Regional Transit, the agency serving California’s capital city, said he believes there won’t be widespread rollouts of open-loop payments in California or throughout the U.S. until payments networks and banks reduce fees for agencies to accept debit and credit cards. […]

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Visa Quietly Lowers Interchange for Transit Agencies in California but Scope of Reductions Limited So Far

Card at terminal, Monterey-Salinas Transit

Visa has quietly introduced a new interchange category for transit agencies in California, Mobility Payments has learned. If rolled out nationally and across more card types, the changes could substantially reduce the high fees that agencies pay to accept credit and debit cards for fares. […]

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California Open-Loop Program Chief: Transit Agencies Should Stop Thinking They Need to Create a ‘Separate Currency’

Gillian Gillett, manager for the California Integrated Mobility program in the state Department of Transportation, once observed that 97% of Californians never even think about using public transit. “I mean, if we were a business, we would be out of business,” she sighed. […]

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Exclusive: Los Angeles City Transit Agency Plans Open-Loop Payments Pilot; To Target Underbanked and Unbanked

LADOT Commuter Express bus

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation, or LADOT, the city-owned transit agency that runs fixed-route and commuter bus service in and around the city, plans to launch a trial of open-loop payments as part of the California Integrated Travel Project, Mobility Payments has learned. […]

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State of California Seeks to Change Way Transit Agencies Procure Fare Systems

Card at terminal-Monetery-Salinas Transit

As the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, sees it, the state’s more than 300 local transit agencies offer a fragmented and inefficient mix of fare collection systems–a fact it says discourages many potential riders among the state’s nearly 40 million residents from taking public transit. […]

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More Transit Agencies Seek to Eliminate Cash Using Retail Cash Points, Fintechs

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, elimination of cash has taken on greater urgency for transit agencies. Fare-collection system suppliers say they are seeing strong demand for cashless options, including linking their mobile ticketing and contactless closed-loop card products to retail networks where customers can use cash. […]

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Open-Loop Payments Trial at Small California Transit Agency Could Lead to More Rollouts in Giant State

California public bus agency Monterey-Salinas Transit last month officially launched a six-month “demonstration” project to pilot contactless open-loop payments. While the agency is very small, providing only around 3,500 rides per day last year, the launch holds much greater significance. […]

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Los Angeles Transit Authority Follows Through with Plans to Enable TAP Card for Apple Pay; Google Pay to Follow

Another major U.S. transit agency has introduced a virtual closed-loop card for Apple Pay this week, with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or Metro, It comes a couple of days after the Washington (D.C.) Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or WMATA, announced it had put its SmarTrip closed-loop card on Apple’s NFC-enabled devices, as well. […]

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