Passengers using the subway and local trains in the Italian capital city of Rome can now use their contactless bank card to pay for the journeys they make each day — and can also opt to use their card as a replacement for their monthly travel pass... More
RTD, the transportation operator for the city of Denver which launched a transit ticketing integration with Uber in May 2019, has now added a further integration with travel planning app Transit, enabling users to plan and purchase RTD tickets from within the Transit app... More
South China city subway adopts facial recognition — Xinhua — “Instead of using tickets or swiping their smartphones, passengers can smile at a screen to unlock the electric gates in about half a second after completing a real-name registration on Guangzhou Metro’s official mini-program on WeChat, China’s popular social media platform, or on the ‘Guangzhou Metro’ mobile app. The fee will be deducted from the payment methods that subway riders previously register and validate through their mobile phones.”
Public transportation users in the Turkish capital of Ankara can now upload an AnkaraKart transit pass to their NFC mobile phone and use it to make payments on bus, subway and light rail services... More
Users of Japanese rail operator JR East’s Suica stored value transit cards will soon be able to start collecting loyalty points when they use their account to pay for their journeys — and will receive four times as many points when they use Suica to make a payment with their mobile phone rather than a plastic card... More
Public transportation users in Detroit, Michigan, can now use their mobile phone as well as the city’s new contactless transit cards to purchase time-based travel passes that work seamlessly across multiple transportation operators... More
Passengers using Miami-Dade Transit’s Metrorail service can now pay for their travel using a contactless card issued by Mastercard, Visa or American Express, make mobile payments using Google Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay or select to use Fitbit Pay to pay with a wearable device. More
Trentino Trasporti, the transportation operator for the Italian city of Trento, is to be the first to pilot a new transit ticketing concept that uses sensors placed on trains to calculate and charge passengers for fares by automatically detecting when they get on and off a particular service. More
More than 170,000 journeys have been made using Metrolink’s new contactless payment system in the four weeks since the service launched on 15 July, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has revealed... More
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) says its new Omny open loop contactless payments system recorded its one millionth transaction on 8 August, “a remarkable milestone accomplished at a much higher usage rate than initially estimated”... More
Mumbai bus operator BEST is to begin a pilot of India’s ‘One Nation One Card’ national transit card system in November this year... More
100 million transit riders are paying with WeChat mini-program: Tencent — Caixin Global — “Ride Code allows subway and bus riders to pay for transit fares with QR codes directly upon boarding in various Chinese cities. At subway stations, that means showing your barcode at the turnstile. Riders do not need to visit ticket kiosks as the fare is deducted from their WeChat Pay wallet.”
Savings for commuters using contactless payments — Commonwealth Bank of Australia — “Commuters using contactless payments will now also receive Opal travel benefits, including: Daily, weekly and Sunday travel caps in line with Opal caps; Weekly travel reward (half price after eight trips); The Opal transfer discount; Off-peak pricing for train travel… The trial is also extending to the Sydney bus network in a staged roll-out over the coming months.”
Israel Railways starts plan to pay for rides using credit cards — The Jerusalem Post — “Israel Railways has launched a two-month contactless payment pilot programme, aiming to soon enable all rail users to ‘tap and go’ with their credit card rather than purchase a ticket or use a preloaded Rav-Kav smartcard… Pilot participants will initially be charged daily based on purchasing full price one-way tickets, although Israel Railways intends to introduce season tickets and discounts for senior citizens, students and other groups in the near future.”
Beijing subway experimenting with facial recognition for fare payment — ECNS — “The Beijing subway system is experimenting with facial recognition for passengers to pay their fares, and the technology might be applied to the entire system once the database is accurate enough, according to a report by Beijing Youth Daily… The Beijing subway system is likely to adopt the technology once the database proves to be 100% accurate, the report said.”
Tap Tap Cap! — Lothian — “From 24 July, our services will accept contactless payment with daily fare capping — a first for Scotland… Just tap your card on the reader when you board the bus and you will be charged an Adult Single fare. After three or more taps, the fare will be capped at our AdultDayTicket price.”
Apple Pay coming to Miami fare system in August — Appleosophy — “Miami-Dade County’s fare system for their transit is set to begin accepting Apple Pay and other forms of contactless payment systems, such as Google Pay and Samsung Pay. According to an image found on Reddit, it would appear as though the Miami-Dade County transit system is set to begin accepting Apple Pay in August 2019.”
Passengers set to benefit from new contactless payments on Metrolink — Transport for Greater Manchester — “The new system will mean customers can simply touch-in at the start of a journey and touch-out at the end using a contactless bank card or another contactless-enabled payment device, such as a phone or watch. The system will then automatically work out the total daily fare for a customer’s journeys and the price will be capped — to ensure they are paying no more than the relevant adult daily one-day travelcard price.”
Octopus coming soon to iPhone and Apple Watch — Octopus — “Octopus Cards Limited is excited to announce that customers will be able to use their Octopus on their iPhone or Apple Watch for transit and retail payment with Apple Pay later this year. More details will be shared soon.”
NSW looks to facial recognition as Opal card alternative — iTnews — “In the transport space we’ll use facial recognition technology to scan customers who’ve ‘opted in’ and linked their Opal account… No more gate barriers – just a smooth journey.”
