New York's MTA to extend contactless payments to more stations, buses

Source: MTA

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced that OMNY, the new contactless fare payment system, surpassed three million taps last week on November 5.

The tremendous growth in use comes over the course of just six weeks, a week faster than the system's growth from one million to two million taps and four weeks faster than it took OMNY to reach one million taps.

Adoption rates of OMNY thus far have exceeded even the most optimistic of internal forecasts initially set by MTA officials prior to launch.

MTA officials also unveiled the next several stations where OMNY contactless readers will be available starting next month. Those stations include:

Penn Station 1 Subway2 Subway3 SubwayA SubwayC SubwayE Subway
Whitehall Street R SubwayW Subway
South Ferry 1 Subway
86 St--Bay Ridge R Subway
Sutphin Blvd-Archer Av-JFK E SubwayJ SubwayZ Subway
St. George and Tompkinsville stations on the Staten Island Railway

Additionally, by year’s end, OMNY will be available at several more stations on the 4 Subway5 Subway6 Subway lines and the 1 Subway2 Subway3 Subway lines in Manhattan and the Bronx. The arrival of OMNY at all of these locations marks the first time that OMNY will touch all five boroughs.

December is the beginning of a blitz phase of installations that will bring the popular new contactless fare payment system to all 472 stations as well as all MTA bus routes by the end of next year.

Line segments to be added in December include:

51 St to 125 St 4 Subway5 Subway6 Subway
138 St-Grand Concourse to Woodlawn 4 Subway
Rector St to 59 St-Columbus Circle 1 Subway

The OMNY system has been built based on global payment standards, and to date has accepted successful taps from bank cards issued in over 112 countries, including the U.S. These countries span six of the world’s seven continents, all except Antarctica.

“Our customers have adopted OMNY at impressive levels during the public pilot and I expect that to continue now that we're beginning to roll out to the rest of the system," said Al Putre, OMNY Program Executive. "We have a tremendous project team in place and Cubic has been a world class partner in helping roll out this game changing technology to our riders. We are working relentlessly to deliver this new fare payment system effectively through meticulous and continuous testing and monitoring. We are excited to start this next phase to bring all MTA customers the ease and convenience of tapping at the turnstile."

“Some of the next stations to receive this payments technology will allow Staten Island bus customers in particular who use OMNY to seamlessly utilize all available free transfer capabilities for Staten Island bus routes just as a MetroCard user might today”, continued Mr. Putre. "The public pilot has been immensely successful and what we’ve learned over these last several months will inform our work ahead as we scale OMNY across the entire transit system.”

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