The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has announced that OMNY, the new contactless fare payment system, has surpassed three million taps.
intelligenttransport.com Sept. 2019
The growth in use is said to have come over the course of just six weeks; a week faster than the system’s growth from one million to two million taps and four weeks faster than it took OMNY to reach one million taps.
MTA officials also unveiled the next stations where contactless readers will be available starting in December 2019 including Penn Station, Whitehall Street, South Ferry, 86 St Bay Ridge, Sutphin Blvd-Archer Av-JFK, St George and Tompkinsville stations on the Staten Island Railway.
“We are working relentlessly to deliver this new fare payment system effectively through meticulous and continuous testing and monitoring. We are excited to start this next phase to bring all MTA customers the ease and convenience of tapping at the turnstile.”
A phase of installations that will bring the new contactless fare payment system to all 472 stations as well as all MTA bus routes by the end of 2020 is said to begin in December 2019.
Winners and Losers
The project is expected to cost about $644 million — $200 million more than what the authority estimated in 2016.
New York Times July 2019
Subway Fares Are Rising Again. But That Won’t Solve the M.T.A.’s Crisis.
New York Times Feb. 2019
OMNY and Cubic, the solution providers are definitely the winners as they received $644 million to build the contactless payment system for MTA.
Visa and Mastercard are definitely the winners because they will charge about a 3% service fee for each transaction.
Passengers from outside New York City will be the winners as well. They don’t need to buy OMNY card and use their own credit cards.
MTA is a loser because they have to finance $644 million for the system but there are no financial benefits from them. MTA still have the burden of the OMNY system including the ticket top-up machines.
The taxpayers of New York are the ultimate losers. They will bear the financial burden without benefits because they use the OMNY card only.
OMNY Card should go after High-Profit Income from Retail Market
OMNY Card with a big user base can be a good cashless payment for convenience stores, fast food restaurants or retail stores. It has a competitive advantage over Visa or Mastercard that people carry it every day and there is no penalty for late payment.
According to the experience of Hong Kong, the transaction fee of the retail market will be an attractive income to MTA.
Conclusion
With the big customer base like MTA’s OMNY card and also latest mobile payment technology, OMNY card can be easily established itself as the local cashless payment icon in New York.
Not only it saves the taxpayers’ big money to invest further on new account-based open payment for New York, but it will also bring attractive income to the city of New York.
Learn more about the latest mobile payment technology for public transit and retail, please visit mobileafc.net