The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is partnering with NXP to enable contactless payments and boarding for transit riders in the Washington, DC, area. To that end, the organization has integrated NXP’s MIFARE portfolio with its own SmarTrip Card to allow people to pay their fare with a tap of their smartphone on a bus or at a train terminal.
To take advantage of the service, riders will need to add SmarTrip to their Google Pay account, which is possible through NXP’s MIFARE 2GO digitization service. However, the option is limited to those who have Android smartphones with NFC capabilities. People with a compatible device can purchase and add funds to a virtual SmarTrip card at a vending machine set up for the purpose. SmarTrip leverages NXP’s MIFARE IC technology in addition to MIFARE 2GO.
Cubic Transportation Systems led the development of the digital SmarTrip platform. The MIFARE 2GO system will negate the need for physical tickets and improve the transit experience for the 4 million people in Washington and the surrounding suburbs.
“We’re pleased to deliver a new level of convenience and simplicity for our customers,” said Metro General Manager and CEO Paul Wiedefeld. “Thanks to NXP’s MIFARE 2GO solution Metro’s customers will have an easy mobile fare payment option on their Android phone.”
“Digitization projects such as SmarTrip underscore a growing demand for more secure and convenient options for transit ticketing and payment,” added NXP VP and Secure Edge Identification GM Philippe Dubois. “MIFARE 2GO builds on existing MIFARE product-based infrastructures to accelerate time-to-market for digital deployments.”
NXP’s MIFARE 2GO system has previously been used to build a digital version of Public Transit Victoria’s myki transit card for commuters in Melbourne, Australia. The company updated the MIFARE DESFire IC suite to support more smart city applications back in June of 2020.
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