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Apple Pay With Express Transit Mode Coming Soon to San Francisco Bay Area's Clipper Card

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The Clipper card, used for transit in the San Francisco Bay Area, appears set to gain support for Apple Pay with Express Transit mode in the near future.

apple-pay-clipper-card-express-transit.jpg

With Apple Pay integration, Clipper cards will be able to be added to iPhone and Apple Watch and used for BART, Caltrain, Muni, VTA and more. Express Transit Mode will be supported, which means transit can be authenticated with just a tap, and no need to use Face ID, Touch ID, or touch a vending machine.

Though BART and Muni will offer tap authentication, Apple says that using the Clipper card with Apple Pay on SFMTA cable cars and other transit services with handheld card readers will require authentication with Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode.

Apple has set up an Apple Pay website for the Clipper card, allowing those in the San Francisco Bay Area to be notified when the Apple Pay feature launches.

Article Link: Apple Pay With Express Transit Mode Coming Soon to San Francisco Bay Area's Clipper Card
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/17/apple-pay-transit-mode-clipper-card/
FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY! I am in the Bay Area at least 7 times a year because family is still back there. And I hate having to refill a clipper card a week beforehand just to get the balance to update. This will be nice.
 
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Finally! Back in 2018, the MTC made this insanely stupid comment about upgrading to paying with a mobile device.

“Most of the people don’t even understand or care about all the kinds of things that people are talking about relative to this, that, and the other bell and whistle,” said Andrew Fremier, Deputy Executive Director for Operations at MTC. “Most of the people going through the transit system are happy with the Clipper card and it’s functionality today.”
 
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Nice! One more place/situation where I can use Apple Pay. Looking forward to that, especially when the pandemic is more under control. It'll be awhile before I'll be boarding a BART train.
 
cmaier said:
Lots of people in the Bay Area use Apple Pay. Pretty much everyone accepts it. Been that way for at least a couple years.
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I was in San Francisco in 2018 and I pretty much only used Apple Pay at McDonald's. Heck I even had to sign for Card Purchases when signatures are a thing of the past here in Australia. I was shocked. I imagine much has improved since I visited three years ago.
 
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Rigby said:
About time. ;) Unbelievable that it took so long to support public transport in Apple's own backyard ...
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Blame the individual transit agencies. They didn’t want to. Notice it still isn’t like Portland where it charges you the lowest rate based on use. Daily rider charged daily cost till they hit a threshold then weekly then monthly capped at the amount for the pass when you reach that threshold. Sf bay all about extracting as much as possible from you. There were months I didn’t commute but since I tapped on once got charged the full monthly pass cost.
 
genoendicott said:
Finally! Back in 2018, the MTC made this insanely stupid comment about upgrading to paying with a mobile device.

“Most of the people don’t even understand or care about all the kinds of things that people are talking about relative to this, that, and the other bell and whistle,” said Andrew Fremier, Deputy Executive Director for Operations at MTC. “Most of the people going through the transit system are happy with the Clipper card and it’s functionality today.”
Click to expand...
I'd say that people were happy that Clipper Card worked at all and that it was available at Walgreens when you wanted to start one.

Hopefully, Apple Pay will make it an even smoother transition between systems.
 
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nutmac said:
As a Bay Area resident, I won't be riding these during pandemics, but it's about time. I am hoping that Clipper doesn't require hefty minimum balance to use and support monthly pass.
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Yeah, I have been waiting for this forever. Can't believe it's taken this long.
Unfortunately, it'll be even more tempting now when I'm out for a run, with no wallet or phone and just my Apple watch, to hop on a bus home instead of running it...
 
Next question, why has Oyster card not been added to Express Transit in London?

I'm guessing it's related to the 4-bit (thus 15 zones maximum) issue the Oyster card system currently has, meaning TfL likely want to move it all over to contactless debit/credit card usage – which works in Express Transit now.

But season/discount Oyster card users are still stuck using them, so if the TfL network expands beyond 15 zones, how is TfL going to handle it going forward? I guess no one (even seemingly TfL, lol!) knows.


And then there's the Freedom Pass, for mainly those aged 65+ (and some others): what are they meant to do?
At the moment, it's a pain for them to use, as while it's free most of the time, if they have to travel pre-9am they can't use it, so they still need yet another form of payment (either an Oyster with cash on it, or contactless credit/debit bank card; as it's a cashless system).

While free travel for most of the day is great of course, having to carry a piece of plastic on a separate system to all other users is really annoying for people (inc. my family members) who are tech literate and want such things on their phones, like everyone else can do. Instead of being on some partially ostracised separate system. Why they can't make FP's a form of Oyster card season pass (that can also hold a cash balance for pre-9am travel), instead of entirely separate cards, is anyone's guess?
 
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MacRumors said:
Though BART and Muni will offer tap authentication, Apple says that using the Clipper card with Apple Pay on SFMTA cable cars and other transit services with handheld card readers will require authentication with Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode.
Click to expand...

The wording on this is strange. It implies that most other transit agencies will require authentication, but that's not what the page says. It says that handheld readers will require Touch ID. That is indeed the only way Clipper is accepted on Muni Cable Cars (incidentally, they are in fact part of Muni), the readers are also (rarely) used on other systems for proof of payment, but most agencies use the same Clipper terminals that are used on Muni's buses and trains.

Only cable cars use handheld readers to board. You'd also have to authenticate when a ticket checker comes around on Caltrain or on the ferries, since they use handheld readers.
 
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Omg finally. Been waiting for this since whenever Apple Pay/NFC was added to iPhone.

shame I don’t need to ride BART any time soon, but will be handy when things get back to normal and I’m back to riding it every day.
 
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cmaier said:
Lots of people in the Bay Area use Apple Pay. Pretty much everyone accepts it. Been that way for at least a couple years.
Click to expand...
Nobody accepted it before the pandemic. You couldn't even reliably use a credit card here since so many places are cash-only or charge like 10% CC fee. The pandemic has forced some to upgrade, plus I actually bother using it now to avoid touching stuff, but it's far from ubiquitous.

BART needed this badly. For some reason, the payment terminals inside the paywalls only accept cash, and only $5 and $1 bills. The others accept credit but are unreliable. The Clipper card itself was prone to glitching out and losing your balance, which is why I never kept more than $10 on it at a time. Next time I ride, it's going to be nice to have this.
 
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jimthing said:
Next question, why has Oyster card not been added to Express Transit in London?

I'm guessing it's related to the 4-bit (thus 15 zones maximum) issue the Oyster card system currently has, meaning TfL likely want to move it all over to contactless debit/credit card usage – which works in Express Transit now.

But season/discount Oyster card users are still stuck using them, so if the TfL network expands beyond 15 zones, how is TfL going to handle it going forward? I guess no one (even seemingly TfL, lol!) knows.
Click to expand...
Check out CityMapper Pass
 
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Who knew nearly half of the longtime members of MR live around just a single city.
 
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