Clipper, once the whiz-bang smart card that rescued commuters from having to buy a ticket or pay a separate cash fare every time they rode a different transit system — Muni, BART, Caltrain, AC Transit, the ferry and so on — has grown stiff, stodgy and nearly obsolete.

So regional transit officials are preparing to overhaul the Bay Area’s universal transit card at a cost of $194 million, plus an additional $266 million to operate and maintain the system for the next 10 years.

The new Clipper system, they said Friday, will allow riders to use their mobile phones to pay fares or add value to their cards. Gone will be the multiple-day waiting period to put more cash on cards online. And the changes will make it easier for transit agencies to offer discounts or special fares.

“What we hope they will notice is that the system works better for them,” said Randy Rentschler, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which runs the Clipper program. “It’s faster, it’s more convenient, it’s more functional, they can more easily add value or get cards for their whole family.”

The MTC is set to review plans to award a contract for the new card system to Cubic, the lone bidder and current operator, at an Operations Committee meeting Friday. The full commission is expected to vote on the contract at its Sept. 26 meeting.

Cubic will start work on the next generation of Clipper in January if awarded the contract. The mobile app is scheduled to arrive in 2021, with all existing readers and other equipment replaced the same year.

Transportation officials have been working on a new Clipper card, unofficially dubbed C2, for at least four years. While the current system, launched in 2006, still works, it is inflexible, inconvenient for customers and hasn’t kept pace with technological advances and rider expectations.

The existing system has been irritating to customers and transit operators alike. Riders often must wait three days or more to add value to their cards and several hours for bus and light-rail rides to be reflected in their balances. Adding new transit agencies to the Clipper system is difficult, and offering special fares or discounts is next to impossible.

Much like someone deciding to replace an old laptop or smartphone, the commission decided it was time to invest in a new system, Rentschler said.

“We’ve been thinking about upgrading for some time,” he said. “Eventually, you have to bite the bullet. We could have kept what we have running. But that would be less effective than upgrading the whole thing. So we decided it was time to just do it.”

On Friday evening, some transit riders on BART or at the Clipper customer service center at the Embarcadero Station cheered the planned overhaul. Others shrugged it off as unnecessary, or said they’d rather see the millions spent on cleaner train stations and better security.

“For me, it’s easy enough now,” said Steven Tsakoyias, 79, a jeweler who lives in Walnut Creek and works in San Francisco. “I’m a senior and I’m happy with what we have.”

But Ben Gould, a 26-year-old Berkeley resident and sustainability analyst for San Francisco International Airport, welcomes the coming changes, especially the cell phone app.

“That’s a great idea,” he said. “I’ve always got my phone out anyway.”

Gould said he was in London last year, where the city’s subway system accepted not only its Oyster smartcards but any “tap-and-go” payment card, including credit cards.

“It was really convenient,” he said.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan