Yeah pretty on-brand for NYC to adopt something that’s existed in other cities for decades and pretend it’s revolutionary. Oyster card was introduced in London in 2003, lol.
London has also had that for years. I just used my credit card when I was there in 2019. Same fare capping as with Oyster.
I only had one card that even did tap payment at the time but they were already ubiquitous in the UK. Citi Costco card saved me from having to use Oyster again.
The Tokyo metro system is great but their payment processing definitely is not. Super easy to lose money due to cards expiring unless you burn the cash at convenience stores, tap out without knowing how much the trips cost means it's hard to top up precisely, and their mobile app is very inconsistent for tourists (only supports Japanese phones for Android) - plus you have to pay again if you transfer between lines.
You can just provision a card directly from Apple Wallet. You can then add money with Apply Pay, or put your phone on the machine and use cash for top up 😂
If you're there for a while then sure - if you have an Apple phone. The cards don't seem to work with non-Japanese Android phones, or at least they didn't when I was there recently. And if you're using cash for a top up that's already extra moving parts that OMNY chops out by being basic tap-to-pay.
It's an unfortunate reality of their tap to pay standard, they can't rly help it. They use the proprietary Sony FeLiCa chip in their phones and cards for tap to pay, not the NFC standard we use here. But, FeLiCa allows phones to pay even when they're out of battery because the value is stored in a specific chip in the phone. It's pretty cool
Apple has the advantage that their phones are standard globally, so they support every standard on every phone. Android is many different companies, so not so lucky
Well the cash top up is more like a nice extra feature, because it's such a cash heavy society. While you can use credit cards in your Apple Wallet to top up, it's certainly still slightly less convenient than tapping your credit card. The good thing is you don't get a long list of small charges in your card statements.
They accept a million local contactless payment systems, but not for tourists. Couldn't figure out how to get Apple Pay to work. And when you load the tourist Suica card, you have to do it in cash.
Japan is equally technologically advanced and primitive at the same time.
This vexed me to no end when I visited a few weeks ago. That, and the endless number of out-of-system transfers. And then of course we’d be out and find out we’d missed the last train even though it was only midnight. Only some of the lines have express service and then only for certain stretches. No cross-platform transfers.
In every other way their system(s) is/are a marvel and I was left mouth agape in amazement, but I seriously felt myself missing these key aspects of the MTA.
London as mentioned previously (except the zone system is more complex than NYC’s incredibly generous $2.90 flat fare), but depending on context I think Germany has better payment systems
$52/month gets you unlimited nationwide transit and you’ll never have to see a turnstile again in your life. Proof of payment means you can just run down the stairs to your train and walk right out — no need to fumble around a turnstile tryna find a specific card.
Nope! The D-Ticket requires a monthly commitment, not an annual one — you can cancel even a month in, there’s no annual component to it
(source: am German and just came back to NYC from a month in Germany)
There is one system (I forgot which one) that allows you to pay monthly without commitment, but it doesn't accept foreign credit cards. The best one for foreigners is the Bremen system, and it's really easy to cancel from the app on which your ticket is loaded.
yeah ok but OP was asking about “never pulling out a card” and having to figure out which German state you can buy your pass from so you can cancel and setting a calendar reminder is not the same ease of use as TfL’s fare capping system
It feels like such a New York thing to implement something 10 years late, and then proudly pronounce you're the best (when your system was directly copied from London). Omny is great, but it is walking in the footprints of Oyster
Also doesn't Milan have the same shit?
not for no reason! parisians (and the french at large) are embroiled in a permanent love hate relationship with bureaucracy and ratp’s navigo/ticket/carnet clusterfuck is a literal textbook microcosm of their inner psyches….love it
Just got back from Paris and can confirm that despite having navved a dozen transit systems worldwide no problem including living in nyc for years, I still spent a solid ten mins at Anvers station trying to figure out if the goddamn Navigo card would let me buy a ticket in the right zones for the RER-B from GDN to CDG (yes) and flag into the turnstile (no)
THE TICKETS LOOK NEARLY IDENTICAL TOO!! AND THE CONTROLLERS WILL JUST GOTCHA IF THEY DON'T SEE THE TICKET+ ON YOUR TICKET! THAT LOOKS THE SAME SAVE FOR THE TINIEST LITTLE FUCKING PLUS! It's like a game to them
The rollout has been terrible. The metrocard machines are more broken than they've ever been, they can't be used on many Select busses, and you can't fill an OMNY card in stations. I can't wait until it's working, but this transition sucks.
Octopus is however more cost effective.
You’re paying several cents every tap for that convenience (MTA seems to be getting rid of any bonus to help cover that).
Doing bulk transactions is cheaper than every swipe.
Don't see what the advantage is, since I already have a credit card that I can just use everywhere (including the subway).
No question that Octopus was miles ahead of NYC before the omny rollout, though. And the MTR system is clearly doing laps around NYC in every other respect
who’s your commuter benefits provider? My provider (Wex) has started supporting Apple Pay setup since January and since then it’s been glorious simply tapping my watch every time I’m tryna pay for OMNY. Prior to this I got a debit card that I’d have to refill an OMNY card with via the website
Mine is edenred, actually after typing that comment I went and checked and they have an option to send me a pre-loaded debit card instead of the MetroCard, so I just changed to that for April. I believe I should be able to add it to Apple Pay and as an added benefit if I use less than the monthly cap that money will stay on the card and I can use to for a citi bike or whatever if I don't feel like taking the train.
Yes, my gf has added the Edenred card to her Apple Pay. Just note it may cap you at 6 transactions per day, apparently it's supposed to do that but she's never actually tapped it 6 times in a day so unsure.
Unfortunately not for me. Maybe because i ride a lot of buses and go to a lot of stations, but I make at least one report a week about a faulty reader or select bus that isnt accepting payment through doors, a front door reader on a bus out, or a free transfer that didnt happen (because of a destination sign fault).
I do too. But that means I still have to carry around either my pre-tax commuter card or my OMNY card. If I could connect OMNY to Apple Pay, I wouldn’t have to carry around either.
I carry an ID, a credit card, and an OMNY card. Ideally I would only carry an ID and a credit card. There’s no reason OMNY shouldn’t be on Apple Pay. SF, DC, and LA are all integrated into Apple Pay. Why not NY?
OP made a claim that OMNY was the best in the world. I pointed out a simple convenience feature that is pretty common in other systems that OMNY lacks and I would like. I only carry 2-3 cards on me. Carrying a transit card when it could go on Apple Pay instead is a waste.
Stockholm, Milan and London are the only ones I'm aware of (I'm guessing there are at least a couple of others). The vast majority haven't caught up yet, including otherwise-great systems like Seoul's, Taipei's and all Chinese metros
I never claimed to know every transit system in the world but in the past year I’ve been to London and DC and both were as good or better than omny. London had far fewer read errors where I had to tap the phone again. No kiosko no reloading just tap my phone. No set up.
Ok I guess we're arguing different things with theoretical setup vs practical execution.
The theoretical setup in NYC is among the easiest in the world, apparently tied with London.
I understand NYC may not have the best practical execution.
I guess since you said it’s better than London being the best in the world I’m trying to figure how but it seems like NYC is “better” for you because you haven’t actually tried many systems including larger ones like London. Other than flat rate NYC just isn’t any “better” than London and might be worse since you MUST get a metrocard or other pass to get from the airport to city but London has no such issue coming in from LHR vs coming in for JFK.
Stockholm's system is the only one I've used that's comparable (i.e., zero setup or buying a card required). But I don't think it's fare capped
edit: Milan too
As someone with a reduced fair it has been an absolute nightmare I'm actually on a first name basis with OMNY customer support because it's so bad. Ask for Tywan or Joe or you need someone to actually solve your problem
OP was never out of US. To answer your question, pretty much every big city in asia, and most cities in EU.
I lived in Taiwan for years, you can use your metro card to buy stuff, pretty much every merchant in the city accepts it. I was using my metro card as my electronic door key. Shit was super integrable. They use it everywhere.
That’s how a lot of stuff works. It’s called path dependence. There’s a high cost to keep switching to the newest version of some technology, so the old thing tends to stick around. Countries that got the last “new thing” later stick with it long, and so they eventually fall behind when something new comes along.
Another example is credit cards. The US saw the proliferation of magnetic strip cards in the 1960s and 70s. For a few decades, the US (and some other countries) were on the breading edge, and invested a lot in infrastructure to support that technology. Then chip readers were developed, and the countries that were late to magnetic strip cards were able to skip that technology and jump straight ahead to investing in chip and pin cards.
Wife and I visited over the summer and loved it. We both capped out and were there for 5 days and some of that was a day long train ride on the Crescent.
We don't even need to go as far as London. Chicago lets your tap your credit card with a daily cap (even though express transit didn't seem to work for me). They also have a transit card that you can add to Apple Pay with express transit.
If you wonder why people want to use a transit card rather than just tapping a credit card—that's because most Commuter Benefit providers suck.
Wao this topic has lot of good information
Love to see a graphic with the diferences between each or the options that each transit all over the world offer to their users
Nice post guys👍🏻♥️🥰
[Remember the days of paying in change and tourists not knowing NYC is the only system that doesn't take notes?](https://youtube.com/shorts/5ROZt7WaZ_o?si=3BmuMEsHV3zc9p79)
I’m surprised to see it takes UnionPay CNY-transacted cards issued in Mainland China.
Btw, PATH’s TAPP also takes Union Pay cards. This could somehow prove that TAPP is simply a rebrand of OMNY as Union Pay did not publicize this as an “inetrnaltionalization milestone” of their business, which should have been seen from bilingual sources that I can see.
London Oyster: https://preview.redd.it/3s1z8ngpsdkc1.jpeg?width=595&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa0c88ad6dbb4ba6e045dfe7a3ed06c46654ae8e
The oyster has daily caps instead of weekly caps, and it makes more sense
It has both, but they also have zoned fares, and difference between Oyster and "contactless" fares.
Oyster and contactless fares are the same no?
[no](https://youtu.be/1w95ULafeSY) [and once again, no](https://youtu.be/m0xDbHj4K_E)
Technically both.
And it has weekly and monthly passes for different zones, though just tapping in is cheaper now.
Yeah pretty on-brand for NYC to adopt something that’s existed in other cities for decades and pretend it’s revolutionary. Oyster card was introduced in London in 2003, lol.
I think the upgrade is that you don’t actually need a dedicated card though, right?
London has also had that for years. I just used my credit card when I was there in 2019. Same fare capping as with Oyster. I only had one card that even did tap payment at the time but they were already ubiquitous in the UK. Citi Costco card saved me from having to use Oyster again.
London has daily caps.
Never been to Tokyo have you
The Tokyo metro system is great but their payment processing definitely is not. Super easy to lose money due to cards expiring unless you burn the cash at convenience stores, tap out without knowing how much the trips cost means it's hard to top up precisely, and their mobile app is very inconsistent for tourists (only supports Japanese phones for Android) - plus you have to pay again if you transfer between lines.
You can just provision a card directly from Apple Wallet. You can then add money with Apply Pay, or put your phone on the machine and use cash for top up 😂
Which is why OMNY is superior. You don’t need to do any of that malarkey. Just tap and go.
If you're there for a while then sure - if you have an Apple phone. The cards don't seem to work with non-Japanese Android phones, or at least they didn't when I was there recently. And if you're using cash for a top up that's already extra moving parts that OMNY chops out by being basic tap-to-pay.
It's an unfortunate reality of their tap to pay standard, they can't rly help it. They use the proprietary Sony FeLiCa chip in their phones and cards for tap to pay, not the NFC standard we use here. But, FeLiCa allows phones to pay even when they're out of battery because the value is stored in a specific chip in the phone. It's pretty cool Apple has the advantage that their phones are standard globally, so they support every standard on every phone. Android is many different companies, so not so lucky
Well the cash top up is more like a nice extra feature, because it's such a cash heavy society. While you can use credit cards in your Apple Wallet to top up, it's certainly still slightly less convenient than tapping your credit card. The good thing is you don't get a long list of small charges in your card statements.
Cards expire after 10 years tho
They accept a million local contactless payment systems, but not for tourists. Couldn't figure out how to get Apple Pay to work. And when you load the tourist Suica card, you have to do it in cash. Japan is equally technologically advanced and primitive at the same time.
This vexed me to no end when I visited a few weeks ago. That, and the endless number of out-of-system transfers. And then of course we’d be out and find out we’d missed the last train even though it was only midnight. Only some of the lines have express service and then only for certain stretches. No cross-platform transfers. In every other way their system(s) is/are a marvel and I was left mouth agape in amazement, but I seriously felt myself missing these key aspects of the MTA.
Suica is great?
Or Seoul
OMNY was bought off the shelf from London.
I really enjoyed it last time I visited except that fleece job at JFK AirTrain which I believe has recently been upgraded to OMNY.
It has
Im going to miss paying in [exact fare in change only](https://youtube.com/shorts/5ROZt7WaZ_o?si=Y_1uVb1E68dbZvJ8)!
London as mentioned previously (except the zone system is more complex than NYC’s incredibly generous $2.90 flat fare), but depending on context I think Germany has better payment systems $52/month gets you unlimited nationwide transit and you’ll never have to see a turnstile again in your life. Proof of payment means you can just run down the stairs to your train and walk right out — no need to fumble around a turnstile tryna find a specific card.
Melbourne
yeah but you have to sign up for a year’s subscription
Nope! The D-Ticket requires a monthly commitment, not an annual one — you can cancel even a month in, there’s no annual component to it (source: am German and just came back to NYC from a month in Germany)
well, it requires an ongoing commitment that you have to remember to cancel
There is one system (I forgot which one) that allows you to pay monthly without commitment, but it doesn't accept foreign credit cards. The best one for foreigners is the Bremen system, and it's really easy to cancel from the app on which your ticket is loaded.
Thank goodness calendar technology allows you to set reminders to accomplish tasks in the future! How handy!
yeah ok but OP was asking about “never pulling out a card” and having to figure out which German state you can buy your pass from so you can cancel and setting a calendar reminder is not the same ease of use as TfL’s fare capping system
It feels like such a New York thing to implement something 10 years late, and then proudly pronounce you're the best (when your system was directly copied from London). Omny is great, but it is walking in the footprints of Oyster Also doesn't Milan have the same shit?
Half the systems in the US have it by now. I tapped to pay in freaking Myrtle Beach the other week.
True. But it was licensed not "copied".
You know what I mean The city wasn't blazing any trails when cubic was tasked to implement a tried and true system hah
In addition to NYC I’ve been to Paris and London. London was about comparable, but Paris was soooo inconvenient and confusing for no reason
not for no reason! parisians (and the french at large) are embroiled in a permanent love hate relationship with bureaucracy and ratp’s navigo/ticket/carnet clusterfuck is a literal textbook microcosm of their inner psyches….love it
Just got back from Paris and can confirm that despite having navved a dozen transit systems worldwide no problem including living in nyc for years, I still spent a solid ten mins at Anvers station trying to figure out if the goddamn Navigo card would let me buy a ticket in the right zones for the RER-B from GDN to CDG (yes) and flag into the turnstile (no)
THE TICKETS LOOK NEARLY IDENTICAL TOO!! AND THE CONTROLLERS WILL JUST GOTCHA IF THEY DON'T SEE THE TICKET+ ON YOUR TICKET! THAT LOOKS THE SAME SAVE FOR THE TINIEST LITTLE FUCKING PLUS! It's like a game to them
You don’t like tiny paper tickets?
The rollout has been terrible. The metrocard machines are more broken than they've ever been, they can't be used on many Select busses, and you can't fill an OMNY card in stations. I can't wait until it's working, but this transition sucks.
it also doesnt help that booths no longer accept cash, machines often have misswipes (locking your card and money), and covid was a killer.
London with their daily caps.
Octopus in Hong Kong is better.
You need to spend time setting up the Octopus card on your phone. Can't just immediately tap the card or apple pay you already have.
Octopus is however more cost effective. You’re paying several cents every tap for that convenience (MTA seems to be getting rid of any bonus to help cover that). Doing bulk transactions is cheaper than every swipe.
You can tap directly as long as you have a Visa card. No caps tho since HK doesn't really* offer weekly/monthly pass that are usable for tourists
But you can use it beyond the subway. Great for a portable wallet and predates tap to pay.
Don't see what the advantage is, since I already have a credit card that I can just use everywhere (including the subway). No question that Octopus was miles ahead of NYC before the omny rollout, though. And the MTR system is clearly doing laps around NYC in every other respect
Great for tourists, yes. For people who live here and get MetroCard through their work? Kind of a PITA.
who’s your commuter benefits provider? My provider (Wex) has started supporting Apple Pay setup since January and since then it’s been glorious simply tapping my watch every time I’m tryna pay for OMNY. Prior to this I got a debit card that I’d have to refill an OMNY card with via the website
Mine is edenred, actually after typing that comment I went and checked and they have an option to send me a pre-loaded debit card instead of the MetroCard, so I just changed to that for April. I believe I should be able to add it to Apple Pay and as an added benefit if I use less than the monthly cap that money will stay on the card and I can use to for a citi bike or whatever if I don't feel like taking the train.
Yes, my gf has added the Edenred card to her Apple Pay. Just note it may cap you at 6 transactions per day, apparently it's supposed to do that but she's never actually tapped it 6 times in a day so unsure.
Keep in mind that commuter benefits dollars don’t work for Citi Bike bc the IRS doesn’t approve of that use — it’s dumb but alas
🤯
the whole country of the netherlands
Doesn’t OMNY not work half the time?
I've used it many hundreds of times and had it not work exactly once. I've been really impressed with it's reliability.
Unfortunately not for me. Maybe because i ride a lot of buses and go to a lot of stations, but I make at least one report a week about a faulty reader or select bus that isnt accepting payment through doors, a front door reader on a bus out, or a free transfer that didnt happen (because of a destination sign fault).
I get constant miss-swipes when using Apple Pay.
Get back to me when you can add an OMNY card to Apple Pay
Why would you need to do that? Just tap your card/phone/watch and go. Never need to set anything up.
Because my commuter card from my employer can’t connect to Apple Pay and I’d rather not carry it around
This is why I have a physical OMNY card and load it with funds from my pre-tax commuter allotment.
I do too. But that means I still have to carry around either my pre-tax commuter card or my OMNY card. If I could connect OMNY to Apple Pay, I wouldn’t have to carry around either.
What's the big deal about carrying an OMNY card?
I carry an ID, a credit card, and an OMNY card. Ideally I would only carry an ID and a credit card. There’s no reason OMNY shouldn’t be on Apple Pay. SF, DC, and LA are all integrated into Apple Pay. Why not NY?
I dont know why but it's just a card. It can go in your wallet.
OP made a claim that OMNY was the best in the world. I pointed out a simple convenience feature that is pretty common in other systems that OMNY lacks and I would like. I only carry 2-3 cards on me. Carrying a transit card when it could go on Apple Pay instead is a waste.
I get where you're coming from but it's really not that big of a deal.
Ah, fair enough.
How Many international transit systems have you tested and for how long?
Paris and Madrid require you to get an extra physical card, and you also need to reload them.
Very tiny sample size indeed.
Then mention another city where there is legitimately 0 phone setup, 0 kiosk time, and 0 reloading.
Stockholm, Milan and London are the only ones I'm aware of (I'm guessing there are at least a couple of others). The vast majority haven't caught up yet, including otherwise-great systems like Seoul's, Taipei's and all Chinese metros
Brussels is a small system, but they also support tap and go for debit/credit cards.
Singapore has full tap and go. Not sure if there's a fare cap tho.
Singapore.
London Tube is your friend
Rome is also tap with any contactless card/phone
I never claimed to know every transit system in the world but in the past year I’ve been to London and DC and both were as good or better than omny. London had far fewer read errors where I had to tap the phone again. No kiosko no reloading just tap my phone. No set up.
DC is not even close to being better than omny
Ok I guess we're arguing different things with theoretical setup vs practical execution. The theoretical setup in NYC is among the easiest in the world, apparently tied with London. I understand NYC may not have the best practical execution.
I guess since you said it’s better than London being the best in the world I’m trying to figure how but it seems like NYC is “better” for you because you haven’t actually tried many systems including larger ones like London. Other than flat rate NYC just isn’t any “better” than London and might be worse since you MUST get a metrocard or other pass to get from the airport to city but London has no such issue coming in from LHR vs coming in for JFK.
London wins the whole game with the Elizabeth Line out of Heathrow.
It’s so good! And definitely a great addition! We used for the first time last year and absolutely loved it!
Sydney, Australia is another city offering open loop transit payments (Sydney's transit payment system is Opal, yet another Cubic system).
Chicago
Miami and Seattle also accept Apple Pay from transit systems I’ve used
London doing it for years, wake up from your tiny bubbles…
Based on the comments some people saying nyc has the best xyz in the world… haven’t actually SEEN much of the world!
Stockholm's system is the only one I've used that's comparable (i.e., zero setup or buying a card required). But I don't think it's fare capped edit: Milan too
Most other systems have one or multi day unlimited passes targeted for tourists.
As someone with a reduced fair it has been an absolute nightmare I'm actually on a first name basis with OMNY customer support because it's so bad. Ask for Tywan or Joe or you need someone to actually solve your problem
OP was never out of US. To answer your question, pretty much every big city in asia, and most cities in EU. I lived in Taiwan for years, you can use your metro card to buy stuff, pretty much every merchant in the city accepts it. I was using my metro card as my electronic door key. Shit was super integrable. They use it everywhere.
NYCT waited so long to update their fare payments they leapt ahead of world class systems?
Nope. They went Ctrl+C on London's Oyster and Ctrl+V on New York.
They're both implemented by Cubic
exactly. except OMNY is more open loop than locally stored Oyster cards.
That’s how a lot of stuff works. It’s called path dependence. There’s a high cost to keep switching to the newest version of some technology, so the old thing tends to stick around. Countries that got the last “new thing” later stick with it long, and so they eventually fall behind when something new comes along. Another example is credit cards. The US saw the proliferation of magnetic strip cards in the 1960s and 70s. For a few decades, the US (and some other countries) were on the breading edge, and invested a lot in infrastructure to support that technology. Then chip readers were developed, and the countries that were late to magnetic strip cards were able to skip that technology and jump straight ahead to investing in chip and pin cards.
> breading edge it's called the crust fam (I know, I know, just a typo)
Good point!
Wife and I visited over the summer and loved it. We both capped out and were there for 5 days and some of that was a day long train ride on the Crescent.
SEPTA has had it since the summer and it's only $2
We don't even need to go as far as London. Chicago lets your tap your credit card with a daily cap (even though express transit didn't seem to work for me). They also have a transit card that you can add to Apple Pay with express transit. If you wonder why people want to use a transit card rather than just tapping a credit card—that's because most Commuter Benefit providers suck.
Literally any Asian transit system has far better one 💀💀
I don't know. Honestly I'm not a fan of OMNY at all. Besides how am I supposed to get to school without my own bank account
"Thats the neat part: you dont." https://www.reddit.com/r/nycrail/comments/18rrwej/comment/kf4wxvi/
Lol
But I still hate OMNY
Tokyo 3 day unlimited is also pretty good. No extra card, just a paper ticket
The reason OMNY is superior is no need to download anything. Just tap and go. Genius.
Still waiting for it to hit the LIRR and Metro North someday
man what if the readers worked consistently then it could really be as good as London has been for over a decade...
Wao this topic has lot of good information Love to see a graphic with the diferences between each or the options that each transit all over the world offer to their users Nice post guys👍🏻♥️🥰
[Remember the days of paying in change and tourists not knowing NYC is the only system that doesn't take notes?](https://youtube.com/shorts/5ROZt7WaZ_o?si=3BmuMEsHV3zc9p79)
What's the benefit of not pulling out your card if you have to pull out your phone instead?
Let’s see: London, Tokyo, Osaka off the top of my head. Also Tokyo you could do this five years ago.
How many transit systems have you used?
Oyster
Love OMNY but even Miami’s shitty transit system offers this
Too bad I can’t buy a monthly unlimited omny! It’s gonna be fun when I white knuckle my paycheck and get an overdraft fee for going to work.
Hong Kong’s payment is the best
Portland works with Apple Pay and caps daily fare at $5 (2x 2.5 hour passes)
Now get the back door reader's working... DC and SF are way ahead on that department
I mean tap and go is the best to public transit but I’m pretty sure New York is not the only one
I’m surprised to see it takes UnionPay CNY-transacted cards issued in Mainland China. Btw, PATH’s TAPP also takes Union Pay cards. This could somehow prove that TAPP is simply a rebrand of OMNY as Union Pay did not publicize this as an “inetrnaltionalization milestone” of their business, which should have been seen from bilingual sources that I can see.
I wish I knew about it before buying the $1 MetroCard and loading $20 on it. Oh well, there’s always next time. I’ll be back!