The New York City public transport card, called MetroCard, will gradually begin to disappear as a common payment system in the city's public transport, according to The New York Times, as the city council is going to start replace MetroCard readers with wireless payment systems compatible with Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and other contact payment systems. The complete renovation of all the city's terminals will take a few years, but at least New York has been one of the first cities to begin to realize that contact payment is the future.
It is not only the future, but it is also faster, since it does not cause reading errors if the ticket is folded, inserted incorrectly, the magnetic stripe has been erased or we have realized that the ticket is out of stock and we have to renew. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority committee has approved a plan to renovate all public transportation service terminals that will cost approximately $ 573 million. This agreement will allow the installation of new contactless readers at 500 subway entrances and 600 city buses before the end of next year. The rest of the available stations should be updated before the end of the 202nd.
MetroCard tickets will be phased out until 2023, 30 years after their introduction. Instead of this physical ticket, users will have to bring their smartphone close to the reader in order to access the stations. At the moment, specific details about the readers have not been published, but will be compatible with NFC technology such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay.There will also be the possibility of acquiring rechargeable cards with an NFC chip inside so that it is not strictly necessary to have a smartphone available to travel on public transport in the city.