Supply chain woes: MTC, BART encourage adding Clipper card on mobile phones
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) will be waiving the $3 new card fee for Clipper card users who choose to add the cards to their mobile phones using Apple Pay or Google Pay.
The waived fee will be in place through the end of the year (at least) and those riders who opt for a plastic Clipper card will still be charged the fee.
The move to encourage the use of Clipper on mobile phones is in response to global supply chain issues that have severely depleted plastic card inventories.
Clipper is the fare platform operated by MTC and used by the San Francisco Bay region’s 24 transit entities. BART, the largest distributor of the plastic Clipper cards, has installed signs near ticket vending machines at its stations to let customers know they can save $3 by putting Clipper on their mobile phones.
Riders can also expect to see only paper tickets being sold. BART has temporarily reprogrammed ticket vending machines at its San Francisco International Airport station to issue old-style paper tickets instead of plastic Clipper cards. Clipper cards may still be refilled and used at the station, but only paper tickets will be sold.
MTC anticipates the plastic card supply chain issues to remain for several months but says customers who use fare-discount cards such as those for seniors, youths, the Clipper START® program for lower-income adults or the RTC Clipper card for disabled riders under age 65 need not worry about dwindling inventories. These special-purpose cards are distributed directly by Clipper and produced on a different card stock.
Mass Transit Staff Report
Stories under this byline were produced through a team effort by the editorial staff of Mass Transit.
To learn more about our team, click here.
If you have a story idea, let us know by emailing [email protected]. Please review our contributor guidelines found here.
