In the US, the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) has joined EZfare, the fare platform used by 14 transit agencies across Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio, and is promoting EZfare mobile payment in its official Transit app.
By launching mobile ticketing in the app that thousands of riders use to get around every day, GCRTA is making it easier to travel across its entire system and beyond.
Transit with EZfare is now GCRTA’s official app for purchasing fare media, real-time trip planning, paying fares and vehicle tracking. GCRTA riders also get a free subscription to Transit Royale, which offers additional app features that make riding GCRTA easier and more appealing. Fare media is also available in the EZfare app, as well as through ridesharing apps Uber and Moovit, allowing customers to purchase fares anytime, anywhere, in whichever app they prefer, while traveling seamlessly with just a few taps of their mobile device. Riders will be able to purchase and use fare media such as single ride, all-day, seven-day or monthly passes and reduced fares directly from their mobile device.
Transit with EZfare also now delivers enhanced regional connectivity and ease of use for Cuyahoga County and Northeast Ohio riders. GCRTA riders can now purchase fare media for adjacent systems such as Laketran, PARTA, SARTA, METRO and Medina County Public Transit (MCPT) in the same app.
The new system is powered by Fare Payments-as-a-Service provider Masabi, and has been enabled using Masabi’s Justride platform, in collaboration with NEORide (a tri-state council of governments, comprising 19 transit systems from across all three states dedicated to the development and promotion of regional public transportation services).
With their Transit account, GCRTA riders can use a single app to also pay their fare in Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, as well as more than 65 cities across the United States and Canada, and access bikeshare and other integrated services.
GCRTA is committed to increasing fare equity by making this service available to all riders including the unbanked and underbanked with a retail distribution network of more than 230 retail locations throughout Northeast Ohio, made possible by InComm Payments’ VanillaDirect.
Additionally, GCRTA will be installing electronic validators on its HealthLine vehicles as well as its entire bus and train fleets. Electronic validators will enable riders to simply scan their fare displayed on their mobile device when boarding, simplifying the process and cutting down time on-boarding.
GCRTA also plans to introduce account-based ticketing, smartcards, and fare capping in the future.
“The reality of modern transit is that we need to create offerings which reflect our customers’ needs,” says GCRTA general manager and CEO India Birdsong. “Regional travel can quickly lose its allure when several tickets and passes across multiple agencies are involved – Transit with EZfare solves this, consolidating unnecessary extra steps into one ticket in the Transit app to travel across Northeast Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky.”
“We created EZfare to make riding transit easier for our customers,” says NEORide president Ben Capelle. “National transportation options like Uber and Lyft are successful because they use one app, no matter where you travel in the country. As transit systems, we need to aspire to be easier to use – and that requires collaboration. GCRTA joining EZfare is very significant for the transit user experience in Northeast Ohio and statewide. We are very excited to have Ohio’s largest transit system now using EZfare.”
Images: Adobe Stock, GCRTA
