Soon You’ll Be Able To Tap On To Public Transport With Your Debit Or Credit Card
Step aside, Opal card.
Good news for people who constantly forget to top up their Opal cards: pretty soon, you’ll be able to tap on to public transport in Sydney with your credit or debit card instead.
Transport Minister Andrew Constance announced this morning that contactless payments are now available on all Sydney ferries and light rail, meaning passengers can tap on with credit like Amex or debit cards, mobile phones or Apple watches. He also said he wants to expand contactless payments to trains by the end of the year (no word on buses yet, sadly).
There are a couple of drawbacks to tapping on with a credit card instead of an Opal card: weekly travel discounts, as well as student and pensioner fares, are still only accessible with an Opal card.
Still, this will be pretty handy for those times when the line for the Opal top-up machines is 20 people long and you’re about to miss your ride home. It also means there’s no need to resort to cutting an Opal card up and implanting it in your hand, if that was your kind of thing — just regular old wearable tech will now work.
Hooray for Sydney’s public transport slowly crawling into the future. One day, I truly believe we may all be able to get to work on time.