PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA riders will soon be able to pay fares for multiple people, with a single card.
Riders who want to, for instance, pay the fares of out-of-town visitors with several taps of one SEPTA Key card can do so starting Monday, a feature that riders have long desired. The multi-rider feature will only be available on the SEPTA Key card to start, and not with debit or credit cards or payment apps, according to SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch.
“Like a lot of things with the SEPTA Key, we start out in kind of a pilot mode to make sure that it's working well,” he said.
Busch says riders who want to use the feature will have to call a special telephone line to set it up. That number will be posted later this week or over the weekend. He says SEPTA acknowledges it took longer than expected to roll out the multi-tap function.
“There were a number of things on the back end that we had to make sure were working in terms of the trips being recorded correctly,” Busch admitted.
Registered Key card holders can pay for up to five people at once. Busch says that, in time, riders should be able to register for the multi-tap function online — but not yet.