We’re solving public transit’s “how do I pay?” question once and for all

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Public transit should be drop-dead simple, whether it’s finding your route or paying your fare. But figuring out how to pay has long been befuddling — especially if you’re in a new city, rarely take the bus, or have a well-deserved phobia of diabolically-designed fare machines.

Now, we’re changing all that.

When you open Transit, we’ll tell you if your bus or train takes contactless credit or debit cards. Then we’ll link you directly to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, so you can tap and go on your way.

Nowadays, most people don’t leave home without their credit card. In the US, 8 in 10 adults have one; in Canada it’s 9 in 10. Their near-ubiquity helps eliminate one of public transit’s oldest stumbling blocks — wiping away the need for paper tickets and special passes.

Our new contactless discovery feature covers 60 cities worldwide (and counting) including hubs like New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

Which means we can now help riders pay their fares on more than 50% of all transit trips across the US and Canada, as well as in plenty of European métropoles like Brussels, London, Lisbon, Stockholm, Marseille, and the entirety of the Netherlands, ja!

This lil’ opus is just our latest contribution to the art of fare demystification.

Since our first ticketing integration launched in 2019, riders have used their Transit accounts to buy almost CA$200 million worth of fares (that’s 140 million Yankee Bucks). Now you can buy your ticket with Transit on 101 different systems in cities like Miami, Calgary, Las Vegas, Denver, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Salt Lake City… even the entire state of Connecticut.

Two of the biggest mobile ticketing providers, Masabi and Token Transit, are coded directly into our app. And recently, we also started working alongside transit systems that have their own mobile ticketing apps.

Now, riders can link directly from Transit to MTA’s CharmPass app in Baltimore. Soon, CapMetro riders will be able to do the same in Austin. We’re working with companies like Umo, Moovel, and Bytemark, plus our French friends over at Airweb, to link up with ticketing apps in even more cities.

Our work has helped a lot of people, in a lot of places, pay their fare. Of course, flipping across a smartphone screen to buy your ticket feels like wizardry — but tapping your credit card is also magical.

Cities big and small, from Auckland to Portland, Dijon to Sydney, Monterey to Tampa Bay, already accept contactless credit and debit cards directly on their buses, trams, subways, and streetcars. Now, Transit includes them too.

The best part? Our new feature just works, regardless of the payments backend your transit system uses.

By publishing contactless fare info in the industry-standard GTFS format, transit systems can automatically add a direct link to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet in Transit, right beside the exact fare for the trip and an official web link with complete fare info.

Systems like York Region Transit in Ontario, Spokane Transit in Washington State, TriMet in Portland, Oregon, and C-TRAN next door in Vancouver, WA, have already updated their data.

Even if a transit system doesn’t share complete pricing info in its GTFS, we can still tell you whether your bus or train accepts contactless credit cards.

We even wrote a technical guide to help transit system partners update their data, so riders always get the most up-to-date info in the app.

☞ Check our resource for transit staff ☜

Millions rely on Transit every day in more than 800 cities around the world. We want to help as many people as possible, in as many cities as possible, avoid frantic web searches like “app to pay for bus????” or “will subway take credit card???”

Because no matter who you are, where you ride, or how you pay, it should be easy to get around without a car.

It’s as simple as that.

Want to add our new contactless discovery feature in your city? Take a look at our technical guide or drop us a line.