The Utah Transport Authority, following a successful pilot, is paving the way for contactless credit cards to be used as a fare payment medium. Boston-based MetraTech Corp., a billing and settlement provider and automated fare collection company the ERG Group, will be developing and implementing the new fare collection system. which will include other types of smart cards as well.
The MetraNet-based ERG solution will enable a variety of smart cards to be used for fare payment including UTA-issued cards; employer provided smart cards as well as the contactless credit cards. At full system rollout, the system will feature an ERG onboard rapid authorization of contactless credit cards to minimize risk of credit card fraud.
The pilot project included buses serving Salt Lake City ski areas equipped with the payment system. In addition to the choice of contactless credit cards, this allowed customers to use smart cards for both transit payment and ski resort access. MetraTech will also support ERG’s industry-wide roll-out of this solution once the UTA implementation is completed.
Use of credit cards for transit payments is also being piloted by MasterCard in New York and Visa in Los Angeles. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/contactlessnews-4.gif)
