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Interac, Canada’s national debit network, has partnered with the Toronto Transit Commission, Canada’s largest transit agency, to make contactless payments available across the transit system.
Beginning Aug. 15, riders will be able to pay for fares at TTC turnstiles, on buses and street cars, and at Wheel-Trans, Toronto’s transit service for people with disabilities, using their Interac cards. The new payment option eliminates the need for TTC riders to purchase a ticket before boarding.
The rollout of contactless payments is being driven by strong consumer demand. In 2022, an Interac survey revealed that 67% of respondents living in the province of Ontario, where Toronto is located, would be likely to pay for fares with a contactless card if the option were available. In addition, 69% of respondents cited paying for a transit fare with an Interac Debit card as a convenient way to pay, and 72% said it would be easier to pay for transit using their bank card as opposed to tickets, tokens, or passes.
“When transit agencies enable InteracDebit payments, they’re offering riders a payment method that almost 30 million Canadians use for day-to-day transactions,” Andrew Yablonovsky, associate vice president, group product strategy and growth for Interac, says in a statement. “As ridership continues to catch up to pre-pandemic levels, transit agencies are increasingly realizing InteracDebit payments can be a key component of ridership recovery by making transit more convenient and accessible for Canadians.”
In addition to the TTC, Interac Debit is accepted by the nine transit agencies across the Presto fare system, including TransLink, Société de transport de Laval (STL), Fredericton Transit, and Lethbridge Transit.
“With each launch on a new transit agency, we continue to see riders taking advantage of debit contactless payments,” Yablonovsky says by email. “Millions of Canadians use Interac Debit for day-to-day purchases, making it an easy decision to use for transportation needs. We also know that while ridership is still catching up to pre-pandemic levels in some jurisdictions, ensuring transit users have the option to pay with debit is an important tool … for ridership recovery.”
By 2022, daily ridership across Canada’s mass-transit system had dropped 44% since the COVID-19 pandemic set in, according to Interac. Removing friction in fare payment is considered key to encouraging more people to use transit post-pandemic, Interac concluded in its 2022 survey.
