Please Try Again on Subway Turnstiles
So Long, Swiping. The 'Tap-and-Go' Subway Is Here.
The switch from the MetroCard to tapping a credit card or smartphone is a major milestone for the struggling subway.
It can often experience similar New York Metropolis's subway is stuck in the Stone Age compared with systems in other cities beyond the globe. Trains built in the 1960s still run on the subway tracks and parts of the signal organisation engagement back to earlier World War Two.
Only perhaps one of the greatest symbols of the outdated system is the MetroCard — the flimsy fare card that was introduced a quarter century ago.
Cities similar London and Chicago accept embraced tap cards and smartphone payments while New Yorkers still stand at turnstiles trying to swipe their MetroCard at the precise slow, but not-besides-slow, speed to avoid the dreaded "Please swipe again.''
Now New York is finally getting a modern "tap-and-go" fare system that will make other cities jealous.
The system, called OMNY, brusque for Ane Metro New York, started in May on a handful of subway and coach routes. Riders can tap a credit card or smartphone on an electronic reader and proceed walking.
OMNY volition be installed on the remainder of the subway and bus organisation by the terminate of next yr and on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad, the ii commuter railroads the authorisation operates, by 2021.
Subway riders are a notoriously cynical group, just early reviews have been positive.
"It works perfectly," Greg Dorsainville, 39, of White Plains, said as he tapped his Android phone on the turnstile at Grand Central Station on a recent morning. "Information technology's seamless."
The switch to OMNY is a major moment for the subway and a rare brilliant spot for a system that continues to frustrate riders. The MetroCard arrangement is obsolete and should have been retired years ago. OMNY is a glimpse at the future and an instance of one effort to modernize the organization.
"I'm amazed that we're getting it done and it's had no issues and so far," said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban planning at New York Academy. "This volition arrive easier and much faster to get to your train."
The MetroCard has long bedeviled regular subway riders and famous ones, including Hillary Clinton, who had to swipe five times in a row to enter the subway during her presidential entrada in 2016.
Mayor Bill de Blasio tried multiple cards at a news conference this yr — an endeavor that was mocked on Twitter. "Information technology'southward all in the wrist," a passenger advised.
When the MetroCard arrived in 1993, it was hailed as the "biggest change in the culture of the subways since Globe State of war Ii." Its predecessor, the subway token, was officially retired in 2003, later on it had been in employ for 50 years.
Plans to replace the MetroCard over the concluding decade have been mired in delays — and costs accept soared — even as other cities adopted more than durable tap cards. Washington'due south subway introduced its SmarTrip card two decades ago. Boston has the CharlieCard; San Francisco has the Clipper; and Hong Kong has the Octopus. But none of the transportation systems in these cities accept bank cards or smartphones yet.
In a surprising twist, New York took so long that it is at present getting the best engineering science, known as contactless payments. Credit card companies and banks, like Chase and American Limited, are mailing out special cards with an antenna that makes them compatible with OMNY readers. The readers likewise accept smartphones with "digital wallets" similar Apple tree Pay.
OMNY is being put in place by Cubic, a payments visitor behind the MetroCard and that oversaw London's fare system. The project is expected to cost near $644 million — $200 million more than what the authority estimated in 2016.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the subway and buses, is starting OMNY in phases, with the readers currently available on buses on Staten Island and at subway entrances on the four, 5 and 6 lines between Grand Central Station in Manhattan and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Subway officials are taking a slow, cautious approach later on other cities accept struggled with hiccups like defective readers and riders getting double charged. For now, riders can pay for one trip at a fourth dimension at the full fare of $2.75. Monthly and weekly passes will non be available through OMNY until 2021.
The bureau will offer a physical OMNY card in 2021, and the MetroCard volition meet its demise in 2023. Subway officials say there will always be a greenbacks choice for New Yorkers who do not have bank cards or smartphones.
The thought has progressed in fits and starts. A decade ago, the authority'southward chairman, Jay Walder, had wanted to bring "tap-and-go" cards to New York after he implemented the Oyster card in London. Officials wanted to phase out the MetroCard as early equally 2012, but it did non happen, in part considering credit carte companies were slow to make their cards uniform.
The dominance said in 2016 that it was soliciting bids from companies to install the system and would award a contract by the finish of that twelvemonth. That did not happen until October 2017.
The projection cost rose by more than than $200 1000000 from an earlier estimate, transit officials said, because the scope grew to include things similar incorporating the driver railroads and funding for Cubic to run the "back end" technology that riders do not see.
Matt Cole, an executive at Cubic, said that OMNY's launch had prompted banks to event cards with contactless technology.
"Although other cities did have smart cards earlier than New York, in many ways New York has leapfrogged other cities in the earth that have smart cards but not contactless," Mr. Cole said in an interview.
Riders are already using the technology more than than transit officials expected. More than 18,000 people used OMNY on a single weekday in June, according to the authority. The taps have come from credit cards issued around the world, representing 82 countries.
Al Putre, an Grand.T.A. executive overseeing OMNY, said about eighty percent of the transactions were made with digital wallets on smartphones, non depository financial institution cards. Mr. Putre joined the transit agency in 1987 and helped oversee the introduction of the MetroCard.
"Not anybody has a contactless card," he said. "Everyone has a smartphone."
OMNY has other potential benefits, subway officials said: reducing crowds at ticket machines; allowing for all-door boarding on buses to speed up service; saving millions of dollars to maintain the MetroCard system; and helping reduce fare evasion which some riders blame on broken ticket machines.
Subway officials said they would protect riders' personal information and that OMNY adheres to industry standards, like encrypting transaction data. The bureau will not track customers, officials said, and will employ anonymous data to analyze rider patterns.
At Grand Central Station, most subway riders were still using their MetroCards on a recent morning, fifty-fifty if they had problem swiping. The OMNY readers confused some visitors who tried to tap them with their MetroCard. A subway worker stood to the side offering communication.
Ryan Frere used OMNY for the first fourth dimension while visiting from Boston.
"It was super like shooting fish in a barrel," he said. "It'southward a lot better than getting a ticket from the machine."
Mr. Frere, 41, who works in the payments industry, said OMNY was easier for out-of-towners who did non know which subway pass to buy.
"It saved me some time," he said. "I didn't have to worry nigh figuring out how much to pay."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/nyregion/metrocard-mta-subway-discontinued.html
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