Can tap-to-pay save public transportation?

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I vividly remember the first time I used my phone to ride the New York City subway. I tapped my device against the translucent rectangle thing, the light turned green, and the turnstile made a familiar click inviting me to push through the metal arms. On the other side, the future beckoned.

After a two-decade run as New York’s preeminent pass to the subway, the MetroCard has officially joined the brass token in the annals of subway history. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) says it will officially stop selling the iconic yellow-and-blue plastic cards by the end of the year. NFC-equipped credit cards and apps like Apple Pay and Google Pay are the new currency of the underground.

New Yorkers have been living with the tap-to-ride OMNY system for a few years now, but other cities are still getting up to speed. Last month, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) became the latest to introduce a tap-to-pay fare payment system, joining New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Juan, and Washington, DC, as cities with open-loop NFC fare readers. Many cities, like London, have had tap-to-pay transit systems for years or even decades, while others still fumble with card swipes.

But it’s not all going swimmingly. Many riders are still on the fence about the new payment systems. A lot of people, especially low-income folks, lack bank accounts, home internet, or even smartphones needed to use these systems. Contactless payments aren’t completely immune to security vulnerabilities that could expose individuals to fraud or identity theft. And transit systems across the country still face a massive budget shortfall, as ridership has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.

London was the first major city to adopt a contactless payment system, first for the buses in 2012 and then for the Underground in 2014. In New York, the idea was batted around for years but didn’t gain traction until the mid-2010s, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that electronic fare readers would help usher in the subway system to “the 21st century.”

The covid-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of contactless fare systems for many cities. Transit officials saw the benefits of promoting a touch-free experience during a pandemic while also letting riders pay for trips the same way they would buy a cup of coffee.

But the model was slow to spread in the US. Transit agencies are often hamstrung by long-term equipment contracts, and banks lagged on issuing contactless cards. The US cities that were first to adopt open-loop payment technology — Chicago and Salt Lake City — struggled to achieve high rates of adoption.

In New York, security lapses that enabled location tracking through the OMNY system raised concerns that riders would eventually spurn the new system. But the MTA moved quickly to close those loopholes.

The success in New York seems to have been the tipping point. As of July 2025, OMNY is being used by 75 percent of transit riders, the MTA says. If New York, with its Depression-era signal technology and decades-old rolling stock, can make it work, certainly smaller, more technologically nimble cities could too.

But users have some gripes. After all, what is being a transit rider if not loudly complaining about every little thing? According to a recent survey, over 40 percent of riders say they’ve experienced missing or late fare payments. Others complained of long wait times for customer service and a lack of transparency. But overall, riders gave the system a passing grade.

In San Francisco, BART riders are nervously anticipating a “card clash” problem, in which turnstiles become jammed up with riders using different types of payment methods. But let’s be real: it’s not like the current Clipper card system is all it’s cracked up to be.

Pretty much every metro that’s adopted open-loop fare payments has publicly announced plans to include unbanked and underbanked riders. In Austin, such passengers can opt to purchase prepaid fare cards or load up mobile accounts with cash at retail locations. New York sells reloadable prepaid OMNY cards at transit stations, pharmacies, bodegas, and other storefronts. But a lingering problem persists: the black-and-white OMNY card lacks cultural cachet like the MetroCard. Remember when the Supreme-branded MetroCard was the season’s hottest commodity? OMNY should take notes.

More cities are expected to adopt contactless payments in the years to come. In researching this piece, I read a number of tediously written strategy documents about how to increase ridership without raising fares. Transit officials are in agreement that contactless payment is one way they can lure more riders back — which is increasingly important considering the dire state of transit these days.

Ridership certainly has come roaring back, but not yet to pre-pandemic levels. A recent analysis by Bloomberg found that the largest mass transit systems in the US are facing a collective $6 billion deficit for years to come. Pandemic-era bailout money has dried up, and no one expects the Trump administration to suddenly cough up cash to rescue flailing transit agencies.

Many cities are facing service cuts, fare hikes, and layoffs as they attempt to rein in massive operation and capital costs. Experts worry about a transit “death spiral,” a cycle of terrible service leading to even fewer riders, leading to even more terrible service, and so on.

No one expects contactless payments to save transit; the problems are too numerous and run too deep to be solved by a simple fare collection upgrade. But it’s part of a menu of solutions, like streamlined payments, countdown clocks, and app-ified navigation, that can ultimately boost transit in its existential moment. Others argue that service improvements and street design changes go much further in convincing commuters to ditch car-based services like Uber and Lyft. Likelier still, it’s all of the above.