Starting Friday, May 31, commuters in select cities, including New York will be able to use their smartphones to pay for rides on public transportation. Google is rolling out the new contactless payment system, which will allow for fare payments to be deducted from Google Pay through a mobile phone or wearable or through a contactless credit, debit or reloadable prepaid card.
The pay per ride feature allows users to tap their smart device or card at new payment docks set up in participating train stations and buses. Google is working with 30 cities worldwide, including London, Singapore, and Moscow, to enable contactless payment for public transportation.
In New York City, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is apart of OMNY, which is facilitating the project across the entire NYC subway and bus system and the Staten Island Railway. Come Friday, subway riders will be able to use contactless payment on the 4, 5, and 6 lines between Grand Central and Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center, as well as on Staten Island buses.
For now, the system supports only single full-fare payments, but more options will be added once OMNY is installed and enabled on all subway and bus lines. Google will soon deploy contactless payments on London’s TfL and Melbourne’s myki transit systems in the coming weeks.
Google has also now baked real-time transit information into its Assistant and Maps. Users can ask Google Assistant questions like “Hey Google, when is the next 4 train arriving?” or “Hey Google, when is the next train?” and Google Maps will pull up subway time tables and directions to the nearest train station. This feature is currently supported by any device compatible with Google Assistant, including smartphones, smart speakers, or smart displays.