Additional progress has been made with New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) rollout of OMNY, the new contactless fare payment system that will replace MetroCard by 2023.
MTA says there are now 310 subway stations – roughly two-thirds of New York City Transit (NYCT) system's 472 total – that are equipped with contactless OMNY readers which allow customers to pay their fare using contactless bank cards, smart phones and wearables. The MTA also announced that OMNY installation has been completed on the 4 and 5 subway lines and that all but one station has received OMNY on the 2 and 3 subway lines. Every subway station remains on schedule to be equipped with OMNY by year's end.
The entire project remains on time and on budget thanks to the acceleration of work after installation was suspended for nearly six weeks due to COVID-19, says MTA. Other than the Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum 2, 3 subway station, which is currently undergoing an ADA accessibility upgrade, every single numbered line in the system is now equipped with OMNY validators.
"We've maintained laser focus on this project since the day we launched the public pilot at the end of last May," said OMNY Program Executive Al Putre. "Not even a global pandemic can stop the OMNY express rollout. I'm eager to continue at maximum speed and complete the final third of this game-changing new fare payment system by the end of the year."
MTA says OMNY users have shown enthusiastic growth both before and since the beginning of the pandemic. The portion of riders using OMNY at stations equipped with OMNY readers increased 168 percent since August 2019, and 50 percent since May 2020 as more customers experience OMNY at both ends of their journeys. Overall, the system has recorded more than 16 million taps since launch.
Additional fare options, comparable to the current seven-day and 30-day passes, will be available in the first quarter of 2021, after the activation of OMNY across the entire NYCT system.
