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Transit Open Payments Resources

Smart cards are used worldwide in transportation applications, with millions of smart cards in use for both transit fare payment and parking fee payment. In the U.S., most major metropolitan areas have smart card systems in use in fare collection, all of them proprietary systems provided on a turnkey basis.

In the past few years, U.S. and Canadian transit agencies have been making plans to move or have moved to accepting open bank card payments–accepting contactless bank cards for fare payment directly at the customer’s point of entry into the transit system (e.g., at the subway gate or on a bus). The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) was the first agency to implement a complete open bank card payment system for transit fare payment in the United States, with system operational in 2009. In 2011, the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the Chicago Transit Authority, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Dallas Area Rapid Transit and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority have active procurements associated with building new fare collection systems that accept open bank card payments.

The Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council developed this resources page for transit agencies to access up-to-date information on North American transit programs implementing contactless open payments. If you have suggestions for new content or links, please send them to transit-info@smartcardalliance.org.

Transit Agency Procurements–Reference Documents

• Metropolitan Transportation Authority
• Concept of Operations for MTA New Fare Payment System and NYCT Deployment Phase, MTA document, October 17, 2011, Release No. 1.2. This document describes the development strategy for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority New Fare Payment System to be implemented for all MTA bus and subway services, including goals, objectives and alternatives considered. The document defines what the new system should do, the technical, business and functional objectives and the fare payment transaction processes that it needs to support, and summarizes the expected operations of the new system on MTA subways and buses. This document is provided from the Smart Card Alliance web site, with MTA permission. For additional information and to check if there have been updates to the document, please contact Sunil Nair, snair@mtahq.org.
• Contactless MetroCard: Supplement to “Concept of Operations for MTA New Fare Payment System: Bus and Subway Deployment Phase, Release No. 1.2

• Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority

  • WMATA Technical Specification, New Electronics Payments Program, June 30, 2011. This document defines the technical specifications for the WMATA New Electronics Payment Program (NEPP). Among its specifications, the NEPP will be based on centralized accounts with fare calculations being performed by a central data system, rather than by field devices, and will accept a wide variety of fare media, including open bank cards, the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card and the Department of Defense Common Access Card.

• Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority

  • SEPTA New Payment Technologies web site, providing project details, resources, news and updates and contacts

Current Transit Open Payments Implementations and Pilots

• Utah Transit Authority . The UTA system accepts open contactless bank cards and UTA pass products.

• New Jersey Transit. NJ TRANSIT has continued the Tap>Ride program to further test the acceptance of contactless payments on its system. In October 2011, NJ TRANSIT became the first transit agency in the world to partner with Google Wallet to test NFC mobile payments, allowing customers to pay with a simple tap of their mobile phone.

• PATCO. PATCO has implemented the open contactless PATCO Wave-and-Pay ANYWHERE Visa Prepaid Card, for paying at PATCO gates and parking.

Smart Card Alliance Resources

• Near Field Communication (NFC) and Transit: Applications, Technology and Implementation Considerations. This white paper discusses mobile applications that are relevant to the transit industry and provides an overview of the benefits and implementation considerations for NFC applications.

• Transit and Open Payments: An Emerging Approach for Fare Collection. This white paper describes the opportunities, benefits and challenges for transit agencies accepting contactless open bank cards for fare payment.

• A Guide to Prepaid Cards for Transit Agencies. This white paper provides an overview of the prepaid card industry and the products available, including network-branded prepaid cards, and discusses how they may be used by transit as one element of an open fare collection system.

• Planning for New Fare Payment and Collection Systems: Cost Considerations and Procurement Guidelines. This white paper presents a conventional approach for planning, conducting a cost analysis, and procuring a new fare payment system or upgrading an existing system.

  • Excel cost model, providing an interactive tool for agencies to use to assess different fare payment system alternatives.

• Serving Unbanked Consumers in the Transit Industry with Prepaid Card. This white paper provides the transit and financial industries with an educational overview of the various methods available for providing and re-loading fare media to individuals who do not have credit or debit cards, nor checking or savings accounts, and generally lack relationships with traditional banking institutions.

• Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council, a cross-industry group focused on promoting the adoption of interoperable contactless smart card payment systems for transit and other transportation services. Transit Industry Discussion

• Smart.Transit LinkedIn Group. The Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council established the Smart.Transit LinkedIn Group to stimulate discussion of transportation industry use of open contactless payments. The LinkedIn Group is open to all Smart Card Alliance members and public transportation agencies.