Skip to main content

Tri Met and Google team up to trial virtual public transit card

Portland’s Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District (TriMet) has joined forces with Google to create a virtual public transit card via Android Pay. It allows riders to tap and pay their transit fare using a virtual Hop Card stored in their smartphone with Near Field Communication. The service expected to be available to users in the early part of next year following the beta launch in December 2017. Innovations in Transportation’s (INIT’s) back-end processing system, Mobilevario, serves as the
December 14, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

Portland’s Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District (1272 TriMet) has joined forces with Google to create a virtual public transit card via Android Pay. It allows riders to tap and pay their transit fare using a virtual Hop Card stored in their smartphone with Near Field Communication. The service expected to be available to users in the early part of next year following the beta launch in December 2017. 

Innovations in Transportation’s (INIT’s) back-end processing system, Mobilevario, serves as the core intelligence for the project and processes all forms of payment for the multi-agency system.

TriMet riders can tap their device to any of INIT’s 1,200 Proxmobil validators, Mobilevario calculates the fare, validates the transaction against the back-office account, and displays the result in real-time. It is said to provide accurate and up to date account information at any time.

Hot Fast Pass has been designed with an open architecture approach which allowed more than a dozen partners associated with the project to be integrated without changes to the core system.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Helsinki’s residents trial MaaS as alternative to private cars
    August 21, 2018
    Would you give up your own car? Helsinki implemented MaaS late last year and Colin Sowman discovers that the initial reaction has been positive What would it take for you to give up your own car? That is the question posed by Sampo Hietanen, the so-called ‘father’ of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and CEO of MaaS Global. And he is about to discover if MaaS really will convince the people of Helsinki to do the unthinkable. MaaS Global introduced a fledgling version of its Whim app in the city in late 2016
  • Inrix informs FHWA’s data improvements
    December 19, 2017
    Refinements in the data available from the US Federal Highway Administration will improve road management across America. David Crawford reports. In August 2017, the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued the first results from an upgraded version of its National Performance Management Research Data Set (NPMRDS). Developed to identify the locations and times of high congestion affecting traffic flows along America’s 259,000km (161,000 mile) national highway system, this is a key resource for sta
  • Traffic Group: ‘Daily commute may never be the same’
    May 22, 2020
    The pandemic has taught us that our ideas about travel might need a rethink - Wes Guckert suggests a few ways in which change is coming
  • Real time active traffic management improves travel times
    July 17, 2012
    Traffic management centres (TMC) have traditionally served to provide surveillance and responses to traffic incidents and recurring and non-recurring changes in road networks. Typically, a TMC collected field data from the roadway and transit infrastructure and provided the integration necessary for operators to see what was happening and then coordinate a response. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) guided operators on how to respond to a given situation. It eventually became impractical for TMC operat