Skip to main content

California’s MTC expands Cubic Clipper card contract

California’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has awarded Cubic Transportation Systems a US$7.5 million add-on contract to expand the Clipper card fare payment system to more than a dozen suburban transit agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area. The system, which Cubic delivered and operates, will enhance travel options for commuters in parts of the East and North Bay. Under the updated contract, Cubic will install and configure Clipper fare collection equipment on all East Bay and North Bay o
April 24, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
California’s 343 Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has awarded 378 Cubic Transportation Systems a US$7.5 million add-on contract to expand the Clipper card fare payment system to more than a dozen suburban transit agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area. The system, which Cubic delivered and operates, will enhance travel options for commuters in parts of the East and North Bay.

Under the updated contract, Cubic will install and configure Clipper fare collection equipment on all East Bay and North Bay operators’ buses, install retail devices and handheld card readers for fare inspection  and install wireless networks to support the uploading and downloading of Clipper data at all bus garages.
            
Other advances of the Clipper card system were put into motion throughout the past year; in July 2013, SFMTA and Cubic launched a pilot to provide 4802 San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) customers with the ability to pay for parking at select city garages with their Clipper card. In September 2013, Cubic and MTC launched a new mobile website for the system, https://m.clippercard.com, to give customers an easy, on-the-go way to manage their accounts from a variety of mobile phones. The added multi-modal functionality makes payment seamless and convenient for customers.

Today, Bay Area commuters use Clipper to pay fares on almost half of the region’s transit trips. The reloadable smart card currently allows the Bay Area Rapid Transit (7357 BART), SFMTA, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit (274 AC Transit), Golden Gate Transit & Ferry, San Francisco Bay Ferry, San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans), Caltrain and the 1791 Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) passengers to transfer from one agency to another by simply touching the card to the reader on buses and light-rail vehicles, or at rail stations or ferry terminals – using one card to pay for all rides.
 
“Our partnership with MTC continuously delivers innovative solutions to expand Clipper throughout the Bay Area region,” said Matt Newsome, senior vice president and general manager, Cubic Transportation Systems Americas. “We look forward to implementing the next phase of the vision: a trans-regional multi-modal transit payment system using a common card back office and customer service system.”
 
MTC is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

Related Content

  • September 2, 2015
    Cubic to update Bay Area Rapid Transit revenue management system
    Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) has been awarded a $12.6 million contract by the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) to update its revenue management system. The state-of-good-repair project includes ticket vending machines, add fare machines, fare gates and parking validator devices to extend the equipment life while providing new payment functionality that can be used in the future. In addition, the new readers for BART’s equipment will have Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV)-co
  • March 23, 2012
    Clipper hits millionth card milestone
    The San Francisco Bay Area's Clipper transit fare-collection programme has hit the magic one million active cards in circulation milestone. Staff at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) credit the surge to transit operator campaigns to transition more riders, especially youth and senior riders, from paper tickets and passes to the reloadable Clipper card before the end of the year.
  • July 4, 2012
    Meeting the challenges of smartcard fare payment
    David Crawford monitors a growing trend in contactless smartcard ticketing The north east United States has become a hive of activity in the smart fare payment arena. In October 2011, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) published, as a preliminary to an imminent procurement process, the detailed concept of its New Fare Payment System (NFPS). Based on open payment industry standards, this is designed to be implemented on all MTA bus and subway services operated by New York City Transit (
  • January 19, 2015
    San Francisco to launch mobile fare payment pilot
    The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which oversees all transportation in the city, including the Municipal Railway (Muni), today announced that it will pilot a new smartphone application (app) for purchasing and using transit fares across the Muni system. With the new app, riders will no longer be required to have exact change or rely on fare vending machines to ride. The pilot is expected to begin in the summer of 2015. The SFMTA will be partnering with GlobeSherpa, a leading prov