TTC riders will be the first in the Toronto region to pay their transit fares with mobile devices and contactless credit cards starting this summer.

Provincial agency Metrolinx expects to begin testing open payments on the Presto system at College Station. If all goes well, the trial will be extended to Dundas Station and then to Yonge-Bloor.

Open payments mean that riders can tap their mobile device or credit or, debit card on an electronic reader in the same way that transit users across the Toronto region already tap their green Presto cards to deduct their fares from a pre-paid e-purse.

The TTC will get the second generation of Presto readers — an update from those already installed on the GO system, 14 pilot TTC stations and seven other municipal transit services around the city.

Metrolinx hopes to have Presto on all TTC vehicles and in stations by the 2015 Pan Am Games.

It’s similar to the new technology Metrolinx is struggling to launch in Ottawa. The readers there have worked so poorly in field tests, that the July 1 launch of Presto in the capital has been delayed until at least Feb. 1.

Scheidt & Bachmann, the company that makes the Ottawa fare card readers is one of 10 companies expected to bid on the TTC contract. The Toronto-region readers were made by another supplier.

“All the suppliers have to meet our requirements and part of the requirements is looking back on performance. The focus right now is getting the Ottawa devices fully operational and reliable…how they perform is going to be considered a factor for future business,” said Metrolinx CEO Bruce McCuaig.

The readers being used on the Toronto region, including GO and in Hamilton, will have to be replaced when open payments are launched on those transit systems. But no dates have been set for that deployment.

“TTC will go immediately to the new generation. Ottawa will have gone to the new generation. But for the existing infrastructure — not for the civil works, not for the power — but the actual readers sitting there, will have to be replaced,” said Metrolinx chair Robert Prichard.

Accenture’s 10-year, $250 million contract for the design and operation of the Presto system expires in 2016.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Read more about: