Metro riders will be able to board a bus or train without a fare card or cash within a few days, just in time for some of the transit agency’s heaviest use during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
Metropolitan Transit Authority officials on Wednesday said they had completed testing and preparation and will activate a smartphone payment system Monday or Tuesday. The rodeo starts Tuesday, and the mobile ticketing will include the option to buy rodeo shuttle tickets.
“We want to make sure everything is in place, but it will be live by the time the rodeo opens,” Metro spokesman Jerome Gray said.
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Metro’s app allows a rider to use PayPal or a credit card to purchase and store tickets. Once activated, the tickets are valid for three hours. The system includes elements to eliminate fraud.
A number of cities, notably Portland, Ore., and Dallas, beat Houston to offering mobile tickets. In both of those cities, despite some technology-related problems, many riders embraced the system. TriMet, the transit agency for Portland, sold about 2.9 million mobile tickets in 2014, about 3 percent of all trips.
Transit use in Houston is lower than in the Portland area.
Not all functions Metro plans to unveil will be active by next week, said Denise Wendler, the agency’s chief information officer. The contract includes offering Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Android-based payment systems, but those are not included yet.
Wendler said it will also take longer to allow students to purchase discounted fares, though other ticket options will appear much sooner.
“The very next thing we do is park and ride,” Wendler told a Metro board committee.
See here for the background, and here for reporter Dug Begley’s account of beta testing the system. If you park at a Metro park and ride lot and take the shuttle to the rodeo, you can use this system to buy tickets for that as well; see here for more about taking Metro to the rodeo, which is totally a better and cheaper option than driving and parking. I’ve got a Q card, so as long as those exist I don’t foresee a need for me to use the app, but that may change some day. What do you think about this? Would you use it? Leave a comment and let us know.
I was one of the beta users, and can verify that this is a Good Thing.
I use METRO when it makes sense to do so (which typically isn’t daily), and drive when that makes more sense (which IS pretty much daily). The net result was that I’ve debated getting a Q card for the last forever but never quite got around to pulling the trigger – in part because I needed yet another card in my wallet like an aneurism. I carry my phone anyway, and the app is very easy to use. An unexpected benefit was that the fare inspector only had to glance at my merrily blinking phone to see that I was paid, as opposed to scanning a Q card or trying to view the mouseprint on a paper ticket.