Unified Ticketing for NYC area agencies

Allan - How does the agreement between the MTA and the PA for the JFK Airtrain work for the Metrocards
that are sold at Jamaica and Howard Beach to collect the $8.25 entrance fee?

I have used and refilled Airtrain Metrocards for pay-per-ride NYCT use in the past...Some years back I recall
that a NYCT booth clerk actually refused to refill one of these cards forcing me to use an MVM - any idea why?

I agree that using an OMNY Card for transit would be preferable than the direct use of credit or debit cards...
Anyone that has had or encountered problems with credit/debit card use will be understandably reluctant
to use them as a direct payment - any idea what that possible percentage of ridership may be?

A single card that can be honored on any transit service in the Greater New York Region (the best example of
a unified transit card that I can think of is Ontario's Presto Card valid on multiple systems) looks to be either
not politically possible or fiscally because of how the various agencies have to "pay" one another...MACTRAXX

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Thu Nov 16, 2023 7:54 am Allan - How does the agreement between the MTA and the PA for the JFK Airtrain work for the Metrocards
that are sold at Jamaica and Howard Beach to collect the $8.25 entrance fee?

I have used and refilled Airtrain Metrocards for pay-per-ride NYCT use in the past...Some years back I recall
that a NYCT booth clerk actually refused to refill one of these cards forcing me to use an MVM - any idea why?

I agree that using an OMNY Card for transit would be preferable than the direct use of credit or debit cards...
Anyone that has had or encountered problems with credit/debit card use will be understandably reluctant
to use them as a direct payment - any idea what that possible percentage of ridership may be?

A single card that can be honored on any transit service in the Greater New York Region (the best example of
a unified transit card that I can think of is Ontario's Presto Card valid on multiple systems) looks to be either
not politically possible or fiscally because of how the various agencies have to "pay" one another...MACTRAXX

Mac - my assumption on the AirTrain cards is that the arrangement is similar to that of PATH. The PA has to pay licensing fees to the MTA for the use of the MetroCard Vending machine and they have to pay the MTA for the printing of specialized MetroCards (particularly the AirTrain printing on the reverse of the card). When a person buys an AirTrain MetroCard at Howard Beach or Jamaica, the $1 fee will be on the PA's side of the accounting. Any value put on the card would go based on where the value was added to the card and subsequently used. The initial $8.25 used after the card is purchased would be to the PA as it would be used in the AirTrain turnstile. The $2.90 deducted at the AirTrain turnstile (at Howard Beach) or at the subway turnstile at Jamaica would be owed by the PA to the MTA. Any refills of that card would most likely be in a subway MVM and used in the subway so that money would already be on the MTA side. If the card is refilled in the subway and then used in the AirTrain turnstile (assuming of course they put enough money when refilling at a subway MVM) the $8.25 would be owed by the MTA to the PA. Of course it the person adds the money at the machines by the AirTrain turnstiles then the money would already be in the PAs hands. BTW - If someone tried to exchange an expired AirTrain MetroCard in a subway MVM, the MVM would show a screen - "Card not eligible for refill". The same would apply of someone tried to exchange an expired regular MetroCard at an AirTrain MetroCard machine.

As to why a NYCT clerk would refuse to do a refill on an AirTrain MetroCard and have you go to a MVM - might have something to do with what I said above.

As for "Anyone that has had or encountered problems with credit/debit card use will be understandably reluctant
to use them as a direct payment - any idea what that possible percentage of ridership may be?" - from my observations the majority of those I see at subway turnstiles are using either a debit or credit card or smartphone (I even saw someone use a smartwatch). I have yet to see someone use an OMNY card (Since the card I have is for backup purposes, I only used it twice just before the fare went from $2.75 to $2.90 because the online refill system will only not accept small incremental amounts - only full fare amounts (and the OMNY machines had not been installed yet).

In regard to the updated system at JFK AirTrain, it is mainly geared toward Debit, Credit or Smart Device payments. In regard to the OMNY card itself, not too long ago there was an article in which someone from the MTA (might have been the MTA Chairman) mentioned that under 5,000 OMNY cards had been sold to date (this is 2 years after it was introduced) so I would say very few, if any OMNY cards have been used at the AirTrain turnstile at this point. PATH SmartLink cards are not accepted at the AirTrain (so much for accounting within the same agency).

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Thu Nov 16, 2023 7:54 am A single card that can be honored on any transit service in the Greater New York Region (the best
example of a unified transit card that I can think of is Ontario's Presto Card valid on multiple
systems)...

The list of agencies is quite long:
NYCT
LIRR
MNCR
PANYNJ (PATH and AirTrain)
RIOC (Roosevelt Island Tram)
NICE Bus (Nassau)
Westchester Bee-Line

It would be even greater if NJT and NYC Ferry (NYC EDC, an independent agency) joined in, along with HudsonLink (NYSDOT), CTTransit, Suffolk County and Rockland County, forming a true regional fare network.

There are also many private bus carriers in New Jersey, most using a combination of cash fares or their own
tickets plus one private carrier (B110) in Brooklyn. Prior to MTA takeover of private NYCDOT franchise
express bus service and MetroCard integration, the private express carriers accepted either cash or commuter tickets (10 or 40 trips).

Unless they want to put validators at the stations on the LI and MNR, you're only going to be able to use the card as a payment option.

They have studied this to death in the last 25 years and the cost to do something at the stations is too high and the pushback from the UTU is too much. The end result is things stay the way they are.

The TA led the OMNY conversion and really didn't care about the rails

Not sure what the issue is with putting validators at the stations. Literally every other rail system in the world without fare gates does this.

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Thu Nov 16, 2023 7:54 am I agree that using an OMNY Card for transit would be preferable than the direct use of credit or debit cards...
Anyone that has had or encountered problems with credit/debit card use will be understandably reluctant
to use them as a direct payment - any idea what that possible percentage of ridership may be?

lol virtually no one uses the dedicated cards. This article from February 2022 pinned the number at less than 1%. Perhaps it will go up with the installation of the vending machines? It still boggles my mind that instead of working on getting poor people to use no-fee banking with proper budget management, we continue to cater to centuries-old paper bills. God forbid we get rid of the penny too.

Btw, it's worth thinking about tourism and how that impacts usage. I was recently in Vancouver, Sydney, Melbourne, and Hong Kong. Vancouver and Sydney both accepted contactless cards, so I spent about 5 minutes figuring out the fares on their systems and went on my way. Melbourne required purchasing a card, which was not sold at all stations, so we had to figure out how much money to load on this card and then buy it. Now we're left with a dollar of fare that we can't do anything with, in addition to whatever we paid for the card itself. HK has the Octopus card, which can only be filled with cash (insane in 2023), comes in "loan" or "non-loan" variants (the former is only valid for 3 years but can be returned to get your money and deposit back, while the latter "costs" less up front but can't be refunded), and required about an hour of research before I finally decided on what I was going to do (only to realize that maybe I should have done something else instead).

I travel for work on federal contracts that require that actual expenses be billed (i.e., I don't get paid per diem), and its mostly much easier to rent a car and drive because I'll get the transaction (including parking fees) on the company credit card statement than it is to deal with transit cards / passes. I had to travel to Sydney earlier this year for work and being able to tap my watch to the fare gates (my company lets me put the card on my watch) to get every trip directly on the company card basically makes it easy to bill for public transit.

I'll posit that any transit agency that doesn't directly take credit cards for fare payment is being hostile to casual/non-regular users, which includes travelers.

RandallW wrote: ↑Sat Nov 18, 2023 6:27 am I'll posit that any transit agency that doesn't directly take credit cards for fare payment is being hostile to casual/non-regular users, which includes travelers.

Yep.

Speaking of which, NJT launched this for bus and light rail about a month ago. There's even a dedicated page for it. I presume adding rail isn't too far off, though one has to wonder whether the on-board surcharge will still be applied (I would argue that it shouldn't be, because the "cost" of having to carry and deal with cash for the conductors is removed).

SEPTA now accepts credit cards for on board fares. MARC does not, and will only accept bills up to $20.

I recall a pilot program (around 2008-2009) for Metro-North conductors to accept credit cars on board trains,

R36 Combine Coach wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2023 2:29 am SEPTA now accepts credit cards for on board fares. MARC does not, and will only accept bills up to $20.

I recall a pilot program (around 2008-2009) for Metro-North conductors to accept credit cars on board trains,

MARC encourages folks to use the CharmCard app for credit cards.