The Bay Area’s Clipper card system, a reloadable transit fare payment method that can be used on numerous Bay Area transit agencies, will soon get an overhaul if officials approve a $458 million contract Wednesday. But when the new version launches in 2020, known as Clipper 2.0, it will likely serve as an example of local government failing to live up to the region’s reputation as the tech capital of the world.
Today, Bay Area transit riders use Clipper to pay for half of all transit trips in the region, roughly 800,000 rides each weekday. Launched as TransLink in 2006, some of its original software dates to the 1990s. The software and equipment upgrade will cost $165 million while an additional $293 million is budgeted, mostly to operate and maintain for ten years.
However, critics say that Clipper’s upgrade will struggle to compete with private companies, like Uber and Lyft, that are racing to become people’s first choice for getting around the region. Both companies offer well-designed apps that continually add new features and refine the user experience. Transit advocates warn that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission [MTC], the agency that runs the Clipper program, has not prioritized good design and demanded burdensome requirements that will make future updates to the system difficult to implement and unnecessarily costly.
“It’s a reason why public transit is losing market share to competitors,” said Adina Levin of Seamless Bay Area, a grassroots transit advocacy group.
Among the changes coming to Clipper 2.0, users will see just one new feature: a new mobile app. The system will offer no other high-tech features that have been in use for years in other metropolitan areas around the world.
In London, for example, anyone can hop onto the Tube without a special transit card. At the turnstile, riders pay their fare with Apple Pay, Google Pay, or any credit card with a tap-to-pay chip. Over in Japan, dozens of rail, subway, bus, and taxi operators accept the Pasmo transit card, which people can also use for purchases at convenience stores, vending machines, and restaurants. And in Berlin, riders with wearable passes embedded in sneakers can walk onto to trains and buses without tapping at all.
But the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation MTC says these features aren’t important.
“Most of the people don’t even understand or care about all the kinds of things that people are talking about relative to this, that, and the other bell and whistle,” said Andrew Fremier, Deputy Executive Director for Operations at MTC. “Most of the people going through the transit system are happy with the Clipper card and it’s functionality today.”
But that runs counter to a trend in transportation known as Mobility as a Service [MAAS]. The idea is to give riders a single app that allows people to plan trips with public transit or private services like bike share, scooters or ride sharing services.
If MTC could make Clipper the dominant transportation app in the region, the agency could cut traffic congestion and pollution by working with ride sharing companies to reduce the number of cars in highly congested areas. But the the new Clipper system may struggle to keep up with Uber and Lyft, which are moving fast to become the first app people open when they want to go someplace in the region.