TriMet will eliminate its popular smartphone ticket application in 2019 as the transit agency continues to push riders toward the electronic Hop Fastpass system.

The transit agency has hinted the end is nigh for the e-ticket app for a while, but on Wednesday officials told the TriMet board the app would be eliminated next year. Precisely when that will happen remains unclear, and TriMet said it will continue to communicate with users about its plans and “maintain the app” until it is no longer used.

“TriMet urges mobile ticketing users to use the tickets they have and make the switch to Hop,” Tia York, a TriMet spokeswoman, said in an email. A firm date will be announced sometime in 2019.

The move marks the end of an era for an app that was the first of its kind in the nation when it debuted in 2013. The application, designed by Portland-based software company GlobeSherpa (now owned by Daimler Auto Group’s tech subsidiary, moovel), allows users to buy a variety of tickets – from 2.5 hours to daily to a weekly or monthly – on their smartphones.

“It was essentially the first generation of an electronic fare,” York said of the e-ticket app, “but now Hop has improved the customer experience and is the better way to pay.”

In 2017 TriMet debuted its Hop Fastpass program, the electronic fare card that allows riders to pay only for the rides they use each day, while capping daily fare at $5. Instead of spending money on long-term passes they don’t use every day, riders instead pay for individual rides and accrue a daily or monthly pass as they tap the Hop card each time they board a train or bus.

Riders who lose a Hop card can recoup the value, unlike a paper ticket. App users similarly could lose a phone, and recovering tickets could be a hassle.

Eliminating the app will affect a significant swath of TriMet ridership, but not as many riders as you might think.

Since 2017, the total percentage of TriMet ticket sales made on the mobile ticket app has declined to roughly 15 percent of riders, while Hop cards sales rose from just 4 percent of sales in 2017 to nearly 23 percent in 2018 [see table below].

TriMet expects to see the number of Hop users continue to grow in 2019, especially as the agency has eliminated paper ticket sales from more than 100 major retail locations. The agency plans to convert 240 ticket vending machines to paper Hop tickets, which riders would also tap as they board a bus or train, in 2019. Six of those machines have already been converted to paper Hop tickets.

TriMet also plans to eliminate weekly and two-week passes at its vending machines once they are converted to Hop and the e-ticket app is eliminated.

If riders are still holding onto a stockpile of paper tickets, TriMet said it will announce additional ticket exchange events in 2019.

It’s also trying to host ticket exchanges – where users with paper tickets can have that value converted to electronic Hop cards – at community nonprofits that serve transit-dependent folks.

Tickets can be added to a Hop card at the TriMet ticket office in Pioneer Courthouse Square anytime Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Users can also add money to their Hop cards or buy a new one at 500 retail locations around the Portland area.

It’s still possible to pay a fare using only a smartphone. But just 2.2 percent of riders who are using Hop readers on buses or train platforms are tapping with a smartphone, according to TriMet figures.

Riders can use Apple Pay or Google or Samsung Pay, the mobile wallet payment systems, to ride TriMet. Android users have the option of using a Virtual Hop card, while Apple users do not at this time (Apple users who tap to ride cannot accrue a monthly pass).

Here’s more information on where TriMet’s ticket sales occur.

MODE OF PAYMENT 2017 (percentage) 2018 (projected percentage) Farebox (on a bus) 15.96 14.48 Ticket Vending Machines (At station) 16.08 14.36 Paper tickets sold to companies/organizations 33.43 27.5 Retail paper (eliminated in late 2018) 12.66 5.44 Mobile Ticket App 17.79 15.44 Hop Fastpass 4.08 22.78 Total 100 100

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen