Transit agencies are increasingly viewing the smartphone as a path towards improving the ways people book and use tickets, changes that, in turn, boost ridership and provide more connecting options.
In Rice University’s Urban Edge blog, Leah Binkovitz looks into how advances in mobile ticketing are beginning to create payment flexibility for transit systems, everywhere from Portland to LA to Dallas. Houston’s Metro, which recently added mobile payments, sees 3 percent of sales now come from phones, which offer a number of options:
In Houston, riders can now purchase single-trip tickets or day passes on their smartphones for local buses or MetroRail. The tickets can be stored offline and activated before the ride begins. are valid for up to three hours once activated. When a fare inspector or transit operator asks to see the ticket, riders can show the activated ticket on their screen, even if they’re not online.
… This summer, the service will expand to include Park & Ride tickets. Metro is also hoping to partner with schools and hospitals to provide tickets to students and patients. And corporate sponsors will be able to subsidize trips for employees through mobile ticketing. “I think the utility of the app is really going to be seen when those features roll out,” Stanley said.
And the shift towards mobile ticketing, Binkovitz notes, helps people start thinking about other transportation options that may be useful to them. Portland’s integration with RideTap software allows it to display ride-hailing and carsharing services alongside its transit ticketing information, cementing the last-mile possibilities of options like car2go and Lyft for people.
In the D.C. area, WMATA cancelled a pilot this year that would have brought mobile-friendly NFC technology to faregates and payments. The new faregates would have allowed riders to tap Near-Field Communications-enabled phones and credit cards to directly deduct the cost of riding from their bank accounts.
According to the Washington Post, however, the pilot program of 3,000 people suffered a low-usage rate, perhaps connected to the placement of new faregates only at certain stations. But with the current SmarTrip system, which a WMATA report states is “too costly to maintain, and severely limited in its flexibility” (see WAMU reporter Martin Di Caro’s note below), new technologies still hold promise for future solutions.
https://twitter.com/MartinDiCaro/status/720961463620341761
As smartphones become ubiquitous and riders seek to simplify the process of taking transit, there remains plenty of potential for agencies to make digital conversions.
Photo: Riders wait for the Houston Metro light rail (imelda, Flickr, Creative Commons).