Image by daveberta
The long awaited Winnipeg Transit Smart Cards could finally arrive this summer.
Testing began in June 2015 with 100,000 smart card transactions done on 340 buses. Field-testing is expected to be completed by spring with a staged public rollout by early summer.
Once launched, riders will be able to board buses with prepaid fares loaded onto smart cards. Various cities around Canada already have a smart card implementation in place.
This also opens doors to the possibility of NFC (near field communication) enabled Smartphones to be used as a ‘Bus Pass’.
Once ready, the smart cards will be released in phases, beginning with Handi-Transit, and then seniors, youth, full fare, eco-pass and finally post-secondary riders.
