The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in New York City recently rolled out a new contactless payment system, Samsung Pay, now at select subway stations and bus lines. These payment stations are on Staten Island buses and 4, 5, and 6 stations between Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center and Grand Central. 

The Future of OMNY Contactless Payments

The MTA has a big milestone of rolling out this new touchless paying system at all stations and lines for 2020. The plan is called One Metro New York, or OMNY for short. The goal is for all commuters to have access to mobile ticketing through the future OMNY app. However, currently the roll out is not everywhere, so in the meantime your swipe MetroCard is still necessary.

Further down the line in 2021, the MTA has plans for a new swipe card that will replace the yellow MetroCards used today. To start, commuters will be able to get the new cards from select retail locations that are currently unspecified. By 2022, the goal is to have all of the new swipe cards available for purchase in vending machines in the subway and commuter rail stations. Eventually, these will be faded out and replaced with the wireless tap and go payments.

Here’s What You Need to Know:

Currently, if you are a commuter in these select stations, you are able to use Apple Pay, Fitbit Pay and Google Pay in place of your MetroCard. And now, if you are a Samsung user, you can use Samsung Pay.

To use the OMNY tap and go payments, commuters have to own a contactless smart card and a smart device. If you do not own either of these, don’t worry for the time being. Your MetroCard is still good until OMNY rolls out system-wide.

However, the overall goal is to get OMNY ready system-wide and retire all swipe-able card payments by 2023, so that physical contact is no longer necessary.