Skip to main content

US transit networks gear up for chip cards and mobile payments

Washington Metro has joined Chicago and New York in making plans to accept contactless bank payment cards at the turnstile, as a mass-market switch to EMV-based chip cards appears increasingly likely. Washington Metro has awarded Accenture a US$184 million contract to replace the existing fare collection systems for Metrorail, Metro-operated parking facilities, Metrobus and MetroAccess services. The new system will enable passengers to continue to use existing SmarTrip cards, while expanding fare paym
January 15, 2014 Read time: 1 min
Washington Metro has joined Chicago and New York in making plans to accept contactless bank payment cards at the turnstile, as a mass-market switch to EMV-based chip cards appears increasingly likely.

Washington Metro has awarded 1968 Accenture a US$184 million contract to replace the existing fare collection systems for Metrorail, Metro-operated parking facilities, Metrobus and MetroAccess services.

The new system will enable passengers to continue to use existing SmarTrip cards, while expanding fare payment to chip-enabled credit cards, federal government ID cards, and mobile phones using near field communications (NFC).

1000 Chicago Transit Authority has also decided to convert to the Ventra open-fare payment system from 378 Cubic Transportation Systems, while the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority is planning to move to EMV chip cards and mobile payments.

Related Content

  • July 30, 2014
    Cubic awarded London ticketing contract
    Transport for London (TfL) has confirmed the award of its Electra ticketing and fare collection contract, starting in August 2015, to Cubic Corporation’s UK subsidiary Cubic Transportation Systems following a competitive tender. The seven-year contract is valued at over US$700 million and includes an option to extend the contract for a further three years, giving the contract an expected value of over US$1 billion. The announcement means the continuation of the partnership between TfL and Cubic which ha
  • September 30, 2021
    Transit and Curb expand taxi integration 
    Users can now access Curb rides in Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, DC
  • April 10, 2014
    Columbia goes intermodal to support sustainability
    David Crawford on the ups and downs of a Latin metropolis. Medellín, Colombia’s second city and a recognised leader in sustainable transport thinking, is rapidly extending its substantial existing investment in modern mobility. It is deploying both an enhanced integrated traffic management array and the country’s first intermodal public transportation management system. The supplier of both, under separate €9 million (US$12.3 million) contracts, is Spanish engineering company Indra, a major exporter
  • July 18, 2012
    Payment sticker equips cell phones for mobile payment
    German company G&D has unveiled the first payment sticker to meet the specifications of the German banking industry. When the sticker is attached to a cell phone or smartphone, it enables contactless payment, even if the device itself is not NFC-enabled. The Seccos Mobile payment sticker is certified for the MasterCard contactless payment method PayPass. This allows bank customers worldwide to pay bills at over 350,000 PayPass locations.