Transit fares now can be paid by card tap in the Edmonton region

Passengers can now use their debit or credit cards to pay for transit rides. CTV News Edmonton's Gates Guarin has the details.

Transit users in Edmonton can now pay their fare by tapping a debit or credit card.

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The update took effect Monday in all Edmonton-area municipalities using Arc.

By using the same debit or credit card each time, riders will automatically see the daily and monthly standard adult fare caps applied – the same as with Arc cards, which remain an accepted method of payment.

No account is needed. However, physical and digital versions of the same payment card are recognized by the Arc system as different cards, so riders are encouraged to use one fare payment method consistently to benefit from the fare caps.

Those who receive a discount, such as seniors and low-income riders, can set up the concession for their method of payment in their Arc account.

This fare structure – which spans Edmonton, Beaumont, Fort Saskatchewan, Spruce Grove, St. Albert and Strathcona County – is unique in Canada and the reason why setup took so long, according to Edmonton Transit System’s (ETS) director Carrie Hotton-MacDonald.

“All of the surrounding municipalities plus Edmonton collaborated. We each have our own approaches to faring, so there was a more complex fair structure to navigate in this implementation,” she said Monday during a news conference at the Davies Transit Centre.

“We’re also really proud (to be) one of the first in Canada to recognize fare caps at a regional level… and that also added a bit more complexity to it.”

The announcement was received well by transit users passing through the Davies Transit Centre.

“We’re better than Montreal in this case… So that’s a plus. Calgary doesn’t have anything like this,” commented Jihoon Og, who uses the system almost daily.

“It gives me flexibility in case I lose my Arc card or it gets damaged somehow.”

A former bus driver of 50 years, seven of which were spent on the airport route, believes it will have a huge impact.

“I had so many people who would get on the bus and would attempt to pay with credit cards,” recalled Ernie Bastide.

“They need the bus to go to the airport, they need the bus to go to work, they need the bus to go to the doctor (or) the hospital or wherever, and I always accommodated them when their Arc card ran out. I just told them to fill it back up. This new system is going to make it a lot easier for everybody.”

ETS is still encouraging transit users to “tap off” at the end of their trip for data collection about service patterns. Like with Arc cards, debit and credit cards will not be charged again – nor for transfers – so long as they are still within the allotted 90-minute travel window.

Although the motivation for adopting a tap-to-pay system was not to mitigate fare evasion, Hotton-MacDonald thinks it will help in that area, too.

“I think by making it simpler, making it easier for people, it’ll reduce any barriers that might have existed in terms of remembering to load their card, remembering to have the exact change they needed for their trip,” she told reporters.

To check proof of payment, transit officers will use the same validator they use for Arc cards to scan a debit or credit card. They will see a dated transaction, but not any other information, ETS said.

As for Arc cards, they will not be going away, Hotton-MacDonald said, as she believes there’ll always be a segment of transit users who are more comfortable with that method. They will remain for sale at fare vending machines at transit centres, LRT stations, and participating retailers.

Accepted payment methods include credit and debit Mastercard and Visa, Interac debit, American Express, Google Wallet, Apple Pay and Samsung Wallet.

U-Pass and other period pass holders will need to continue using their Arc card for the duration of their pass.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Evan Klippenstein and Gates Guarin