PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA is looking for bidders to upgrade its Key card system so it is more compatible with modern forms of payment.
Riders told the transit agency they would rather use their cellphones to pay fares than fumble for a SEPTA Key card, which is often inconvenient to reload.
“We know that a lot of people want to move to primarily using smartphone applications to pay for their fares, or to use whatever card is in their wallet,” said spokesperson Andrew Busch.
SEPTA heard riders’ complaints and listened. It is looking for vendors to provide a fare payment system that is more adaptable than the current Key card, and one based on open architecture.
The proprietary and problem-plagued Key card system, developed by the firm Conduent, has cost SEPTA $285 million since 2011 — more than twice than originally budgeted.
Busch did assure that the cards will not regress back to the way of the token.
“We are still going to have a SEPTA card available for a lot of different purposes. We don’t expect that to be going away anytime soon,” he said.
SEPTA expects to begin phasing in SEPTA Key 2.0 in 2025.
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