Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) has begun trialling an open loop contactless fare payment system that enables passengers to pay for their journeys with their physical or digital credit card.

The authority is currently inviting passengers to sign up to join the pilot which will see a total of 200 users testing the service on buses, trolleybuses and subways prior to a wider rollout if the scheme is successful.

“SEPTA did not offer a definitive timeline for a wide-scale rollout, saying the pilot would continue until the agency was ‘satisfied with the volume of daily transactions and confident that the system is ready to be rolled out for general public use’,” The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

“And riders of Regional Rail — which SEPTA said faces complexities with fare processing — will have to wait until early 2024 for a contactless payment pilot and eventual rollout.”

SEPTA set out plans to develop, implement and maintain a multimodal mobile and contactless fare payments system in April.

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