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The Utah Transit Authority in November will begin accepting contactless payment tokens in a pilot project that will represent the first use of contactless technology to process bus fares in the U.S. The Salt Lake City-based transit agency in September will begin equipping 41 buses that ferry passengers to local ski resorts to accept contactless credit and debit tokens in the PayPass, Visa Contactless, and ExpressPay programs as well as season passes issued by the local resorts, a UTA spokesperson says. The pilot will run during ski season?Thanksgiving until Easter?after which the UTA will evaluate the results and determine whether to extend contactless technology to its entire fleet of some 600 buses and its light-rail system, according to the spokesperson. ERG Group, an Australian company that provides smart card systems for transit payment, will operate the project for the UTA. Peppercoin Inc., a Waltham, Mass.-based micropayments processor, announced today it will work with ERG to handle payments. The round-trip fare on the UTA ski buses is $6, with one-way fares set at $3 each. Peppercoin's technology allows merchants to accept ultra-low payments on credit and debit cards without onerous interchange costs by aggregating transactions for cost efficiency. Salt Lake City-area banks have yet to roll out contactless cards in any appreciable number, a factor the UTA took into consideration when deciding to run a pilot rather than roll out the technology systemwide, the spokesperson says. While the UTA is waiting for more cards to be issued, the same technology will allow the agency to accept contactless versions of season passes held by resort-goers that are also good for bus fares, according to the spokesperson. These prepaid passes debit funds held on account by the resorts. MasterCard International's PayPass, Visa Contactless, and American Express Co.'s ExpressPay are contactless-payment systems gaining increasing acceptance in the U.S. Contactless payment relies on radio-frequency identification technology to send card-account data via a radio transmission from a chip-and-antenna inlay in a card or token to a point-of-sale terminal equipped with a transceiver. The radio-wave takes the place of the conventional card swipe, after which transactions are processed normally. In other contactless news, MasterCard, Visa, and AmEx announced today that Arby's Restaurant Group Inc. will equip registers and drive-through windows in more than 1,000 company-owned stores in the third quarter to accept PayPass, Visa Contactless, and ExpressPay, which operate on the same technological standard. The fast-food chain has been accepting contactless payments in a few dozen locations.
