Article Highlights
Transit agencies are wrestling with how to best enable customers to receive their concessionary discounts when they tap their bank cards and mobile devices or whether to enable this at all. Adoption appears to be low so far, but a group of California agencies hope use of a U.S. federal online platform will help enroll their customers then pass them on to quickly link their open-loop cards and wallets. The tech unit behind this platform, however, has been the victim of Trump administration cuts.
• Table: Notable agencies that support concessions with open loop, April 2025
• Fact box: Sacramento Regional Transit’s open-loop project, April 2025
• Chart: Agency orders via Cal-ITP program, through Dec. 2024
• SacRT (Sacramento)
• Cal-ITP
• PSTA (St. Petersburg, Fla.)
• General Services Admin.
• Kuba
• Littlepay
• Prodata
• MST (Monterey-Salinas)
• MTA (New York)
• MBTA (Boston)
• TfL (London)
• Kentkart
The Sacramento Regional Transit District in California, which launched open-loop payments earlier this month, is enabling concessionary discounts with credit and debit cards for three categories of riders–and at least for now, cuts by the Trump administration have not derailed the program.
The transit agency, known as SacRT, is the largest of four agencies in the state using a platform from the U.S. federal government, Login.gov, to deliver concessionary discounts to seniors, military veterans and others with open loop. Unlike platforms used by most other agencies to enroll customers for concessions, Login.gov can enable customers to fully enroll online. That avoids trips to transit agency service centers. And Login.gov can support such non-senior customer categories as veterans.
Another U.S. agency, in Florida, plans to use the Login.gov for concessions linked to credit, debit and mobile devices, as well, Mobility Payments has learned. (See below.)
Subscription Required
This premium content is only available to subscribers
Article has about2982words.
To keep reading, subscribe today
Get access to premium content from the only global publication devoted exclusively to mobility payments by subscribing today to the most authoritative source for news and analysis in the industry.
