A new system that was designed to make it easier for people to pay for mass transit in the Bay Area has been delayed indefinitely.
The technology intended to allow people to ride buses, trains and ferries with a simple tap of a debit or credit card or smartphone is not ready yet, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
Anyone riding BART, Muni, AC Transit or other public transit still can use a contactless payment, but it must be with a virtual Clipper card.
The MTC this summer was going to launch a system dubbed Clipper 2 that would allow transit riders to bypass the Clipper card and just tap a credit or debit card instead. The commission said it had been running a pilot program for the next-generation system on SFMTA, Golden Gate Ferry, San Francisco Bay Ferry, Caltrain and SMART but found issues that need to be resolved before the next phase of testing.
As a result the transition to the new system has been delayed beyond this summer, the MTC said. A progress report is expected in September.
Meanwhile, last month, BART installed new Clipper card readers at some stations in the East Bay to making paying for transit faster and more convenient. But it has had the opposite effect. Riders complained the new technology takes a few seconds longer to read their cards.
BART told the San Francisco Chronicle it is working with its vendor to fix the problem.
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