According to Google, 9 out of 10 public transit riders say they expect transit agencies to offer contactless options as a form of payment. To respond to this increasing request from commuters, transit agencies are adopting an “open-loop payment system,” which basically means that people can use any payment card in their physical or digital wallet to pay for transit fare.
This open-loop payment system is already available for commuters in cities like London, New York and Sydney. In addition to that, Google is now adding a new feature that will show commuters their ride history and how much they’ve saved from time-based fare caps.
Thanks to the new feature, commuters will be able to receive updates from their transit agency. Google will be rolling out this feature later this year, but it will only be available with Brighton and Hove buses in the UK initially.
Finally, Google announced that it has expanded the capability to support multi-leg journeys and increased the ticketing options available to users. For example, you’ll now be able to buy all tickets via Maps whenever you’re commuting to another city and then use the local transit system like subways and buses.
