Meanwhile, NJ Transit is a few months away from rolling out its own fare card. And PATH is planning a card for its new TAPP system.
But the agencies never created the commuter Holy Grail, one regional fare card that can be used on all three transit systems. That was a goal for the three agencies in the early 2000s.
Last week, MTA officials announced that Dec. 31 will be the final day for MetroCard sales and distribution. The MTA’s OMNY contactless tap and go payment system will fully replace the old MetroCard the same day.
MTA CEO Janno Lieber made the announcement on March 19, saying the tap and go OMNY system — which allows fare payment by tapping a chip-equipped credit or debit card or a linked smartphone on a reader — is the choice for 65% of riders.
The MTA already has an OMNY card that can have monetary value loaded on it. And by the fall, all 472 subway stations will have an OMNY vending machine, officials said.
PATH, which has its own tap and go fare payment system, will also phase out the use of MetroCards when the MTA does, officials said.
Plans call for a physical TAPP card that can be purchased from TAPP vending machines, PATH officials said. Smartlink will end once TAPP cards and machines are available system-wide, with time provided for riders to use the remaining balances on their Smartlink cards.
Meanwhile, NJ Transit riders got a hint about a future farecardwhich has been seen on the agency’s Ticket Vending Machines, known as TVMs. Two inactive buttons for NJ Transit’s new FARE-PAY card appeared on TVM screens as early as last week.
“As part of our preparations to create a fare card, some TVMs have had their software updated to accommodate the sale and acceptance of the fare card when it is deployed,” said Anjali Hemphill, an NJ Transit spokesperson.
For now, that FARE-PAY card option remains “greyed out” or non-functional on vending machine screens until the deployment goes live,” she said.
“We look forward to announcing more details of this exciting new fare payment method in the coming months,” Hemphill said.
The NJ Transit and MTA fare cards are not designed to be used on other regional systems, despite a study launched almost 25 years ago to explore developing a fare card that could be used on transit systems in both states.
Smartphones and chip-equipped credit and debit cards are used to pay fares on OMNY and TAPP, which took away the urgency and some of the demand for a unified regional fare card.
While PATH’s TAPP system, which debuted last year, was designed by the same company that designed OMNY, and they look and function the same, currently the two systems cards are not interchangeable.
In November 2021, PATH hired Cubic Transportation Systems Inc., the same company selected by New York’s MTA in 2017 to replace the MetroCard with OMNY, to convert its 2007 vintage fare card system to a tap-and-go system.
In April 2022, NJ Transit hired a different company, Giesecke+Devrient of Germany, to provide the physical fare cards for $2.5 million. At that time the agency planned to have cards available by the end of 2024.
That card would function similar to the OMNY card as a chip card to provide tap-and-go payment on buses and can be read by scanners now used on NJ Transit trains. That card is designed to serve riders without bank accounts who couldn’t use the mobile app, which requires tying the account to a credit or debit card.
That card is being developed as part of a larger $114 million contract it approved with Conduent Transport Solutions in December 2017to develop a collection system that would include eventually developing NJ Transit’s own fare card.
Transit advocates also are concerned that fare cards make it difficult for senior citizens to get a federally mandated fare discount without going through a process, which with some agencies is convoluted and requires in-person office visits or filling out forms.
NJ Transit sells discounted senior tickets in ticket vending machines and on its smartphone app. People who buy them have to provide proof of age on request.
A federal statute requires senior citizens to get a discount fare by showing a Medicare card and a photo ID as proof of age.
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