MTA To Launch Pilot PayPass Program
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
If you thought subway entry couldn’t get simpler than swiping, think again.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority yesterday announced a pilot program with MasterCard and Citigroup that could lead to subway riders being able to simply tap a device the size of a key against a scanner to pass through turnstiles.
The device uses MasterCard’s Pay-Pass technology, which is in use at some city movie theaters, restaurants, and stores. The card is tapped gently against a reader, which sends a signal to the bank to transfer funds to the vendor by debit or credit. Subway riders involved in the test also will have the opportunity to limit their card to prepaid amounts, as with a MetroCard. The 20% bonus offered on MetroCards of more than $10 also will apply to the new Citigroup cards, but riders won’t be able to board buses.
Citigroup is planning to choose a small group of people for the pilot program, slated to start in the spring at 25 stations mostly along Manhattan’s East Side. Readers for the device will be installed at 23 stops along the Lexington Avenue line between the Bowling Green and 125th Street stations. A reader also will be added to the Jay Street/Borough Hall station, which serves the A, C, F, and 2,3 lines, as well as the 23rd Street Ely Avenue station serving the E,V, and 1 lines.
With MasterCard and Citigroup footing the entire expense, the MTA sees the pilot program as a chance for innovation.
“From our perspective, this is a learning experiment,” a spokesman for the MTA, Paul Fleuranges, said. “We are trying to determine if this is a technology that will work in the transit system.”
Along with New Jersey Transit and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the MTA is developing a Smart Card technology of its own that is similar to the E-Z Pass system on toll roads. The Port Authority has begun a trial phase of a card of its own design using employees and selected groups of senior citizens. The Smart Card technology is almost identical to the Citigroup-MasterCard device, but the two projects aren’t related at this point.
The chief innovation officer at Citigroup’s Global Consumer Group, Amy Radin, said her company has aspirations to outfit the entire system with the technology.
“Our expectation, based on what consumers have told us so far, is this is something we want to go forward with,” Ms. Radin said.
