Special Report: More Agencies Taking Modular Approach to Build Their Fare Systems, Shunning Single-Supplier Model

Metrolinx presto

Transit agencies planning to roll out new electronic fare-collection systems have typically hired automated fare-collection vendors to handle the entire projects, from supplying the validators and payments processing to building or procuring the back office and integrating the various parts into a complete system. […]

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Multiple Vendors Disqualified in Bidding to Supply Open-Loop Technology for California’s ‘Mobility Marketplace’

Buses in downtown LA

A number of well-known industry vendors that bid on two much-anticipated contracts from the state of California to the supply open-loop payments technology to transit agencies statewide were disqualified last month, mostly for failing to meet strict administrative requirements, documents reveal. […]

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In a First, California Launches Trial Enabling Customers to Pay with Contactless Bank Cards and Receive Senior Discounts–All in One Tap

Card tapped at terminal-California

California officials have launched a new phase in one of their trials of open-loop payments in the state–testing a solution to the problem of how to grant discounts to seniors or other customer segments with the same contactless EMV payments cards the customers tap to pay for fares. […]

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Collaboration with Uber and Lyft: Two Years on, Transactions Remain Low; Suspicions Run High over Data Sharing

Denver light rail train in snow

When the Regional Transportation District of Denver began enabling Uber to sell its bus and train tickets in May 2019-in the first integration of its kind in the world-it was seen as a rare example of a public transit agency and a private ride-sharing company putting competition aside and working together. […]

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Special Report: Interest Grows in ‘White-Label EMV’ for Closed-Loop Transit Cards

Woman holds up new SL closed-loop card based on white-label EMV.

As more transit agencies introduce open-loop fare payments, interest is starting to grow in use of white-label EMV cards that agencies can issue in place of proprietary closed-loop cards for riders who don’t have bank cards or don’t want to use them to pay fares. […]

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Paris Transit Authority Moves Closer to Rolling Out Mobile Ticketing on Range of Android Phones

Samsung Navigo phone at terminal

Large Paris regional transit authority Île-de-France Mobilités is moving closer to supporting mobile ticketing on a range of Android phones using host-card emulation technology from Google, after the vendor trade group that manages the Calypso fare card technology the authority uses beefed up security. […]

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Exclusive: Share of Contactless Rides Paid for with Apple Pay and other Pays Wallets in Manchester More than Doubles in Two Years

Transport for Greater Manchester in the UK is the latest transit agency seeing substantial growth of contactless open-loop fare payments from NFC mobile wallets–with the percentage of its contactless tram trips paid for with Apple Pay, Google Pay and other Pays services more than doubling over the past two years, Mobility Payments has learned. […]

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U.S. Transit Agency Introduces Scanning of Mobile Tickets, but Overall Move to Electronic Payments Progressing Slowly

Most mid-tier transit agencies in the U.S., like the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, or SORTA, in Cincinnati, still have to deal with high usage of cash and paper tickets on board their buses and other transit vehicles, even as the continuing pandemic increases pressure on them to move to more electronic forms of fare payments. […]

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