Open Payment jumps to 10% of BART trips, nearly 30% at SFO
Since BART's launch on August 20, about 10% of riders were using open payment (credit, debit, Google/Apple wallet) as of the last week of September, according to BART staff at the agency’s October 9 board meeting.
The highest share is found at San Francisco International Airport where nearly 30% of riders are using open payment.
Sales of plastic Clipper cards are down 40%. This seems like a surprisingly steep drop until you consider that SFO is the largest site of new Clipper sales, since many people getting off an airplane are new to the Bay Area and would have needed a new Clipper card to ride BART, which stopped selling paper tickets in 2020.
Unfortunately, riders who qualify for discounts - senior, low income, youth and disability - cannot yet get access to their discounts if they pay with a credit, debit, or prepaid card. BART’s data shows that 15.6% of riders use one of these discounts (see table below).
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission which runs the Clipper program says that the capability for people to get access to their discounts when paying with a credit or debit card is planned for the future, but no schedule details are available yet. Open Payment is especially helpful for low-income people who don’t have extra money to store on a Clipper card where it can’t be used for other things.
Once the the eagerly awaited full launch of the next generation Clipper system is up and running, the open payment feature will be available on all 24 agencies that accept Clipper This new system will also enable free and reduced priced transfers when taking multiple agencies (i.e. BART to Caltrain, AC Transit to VTA, etc). We expect the use of Open Payment to jump further when it’s available on other agencies enabling riders to pay consistently on multiple agencies.
BART staff said that news about the schedule for other agencies would be shared at the upcoming Clipper Executive Board meeting on October 20 at 1pm. People interested in the news can watch the meeting by zoom or attend in person at MTC headquarters. BART staff also said that the board would discuss next steps for people to get access to discounts with open payment at its next meeting on October 23.