New York City Plans to Replace Transit MetroCard With Electronic Card Readers That Support Apple Pay

New York City is planning to replace its existing MetroCard transit payment system with electronic card readers that will allow New Yorkers to pay their subway and bus fares using Apple Pay, reports The New York Times.

A committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority this morning approved a $573 million contract for a payment system that mirrors the one in use for the London Underground and commuter railroads in London.

metrocard


Starting in late 2018, NFC-based electronic readers will be installed in 500 subway turnstiles and 600 buses, with rollout expanding to all subway stations and buses by late 2020. Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay will work with the new system, as will contactless credit and debit cards that have an embedded NFC chip.

While the new system will replace the MetroCard, New York City will not phase out MetroCards entirely until 2023. Until then, the two systems will co-exist.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

Popular Stories

iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
iOS 26 Feature

iOS 26.1 to iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps. More features and changes will follow in future ...
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones Coming Soon

Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released by the end of next week. Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
iPhone Siri Glow

Some Apple Employees Have 'Concerns' About iOS 26.4's Revamped Siri

Sunday October 19, 2025 7:39 am PDT by
iOS 26.4 is expected to introduce a revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, but not everyone is satisfied with how well it works. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance. However, he did not provide any specific details about the shortcomings. iOS 26.4 will...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

New 14-Inch MacBook Pro Has Two Key Upgrades Beyond the M5 Chip

Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump. First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

New iPad Pro Has Six Key Upgrades Beyond M5 Chip

Saturday October 18, 2025 10:57 am PDT by
While the new iPad Pro's headline feature is the M5 chip, the device has some other changes, including N1 and C1X chips, faster storage speeds, and more. With the M5 chip, the new iPad Pro has up to a 20% faster CPU and up to a 40% faster GPU compared to the previous model with the M4 chip, according to Geekbench 6 results. Keep in mind that 256GB and 512GB configurations have a 9-core CPU,...
m4 macbook air blue

M5 MacBook Air Coming Spring 2026 With M5 Mac Studio and Mac Mini in Development

Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year. Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

M5 Chip Achieves Impressive Feat in 14-Inch MacBook Pro Speed Test

Friday October 17, 2025 7:10 am PDT by
The first alleged benchmark result for the M5 chip in the new 14-inch MacBook Pro has surfaced, allowing for some performance comparisons. Based on a single unconfirmed result uploaded to the Geekbench 6 database today, the M5 chip has pulled off an impressive feat. Specifically, the chip achieved a score of 4,263 for single-core CPU performance, which is the highest single-core score that...

Top Rated Comments

Sheza Avatar
104 months ago
Welcome to 2003, New York!
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Ted13 Avatar
104 months ago
I sure hope they put the emphasis on speed here. When a metrocard is swiped correctly, you barely have to break your stride at all to go through.

If this takes even a couple seconds to register, it's going to slow things down horribly. I mean, aside from your occasional tourist or newbie who hasn't gotten the hang of swiping, or the odd card or turnstile malfunction, people do it very fast.
"occasional tourist" - New York City receives over 60 million foreign and American tourists each year. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_New_York_City

"When a metrocard is swiped correctly, you barely have to break your stride at all to go through." I'd say 50% of the time if you "swipe correctly" - the rest is multiswipes, frustration and/or waiting for the person in front of you to swipe over and over or go through 5 different MetroCards to figure out which one didn't expire.

Apple Pay will be a HUGE improvement in turnstiles over MetroCards
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dontwalkhand Avatar
104 months ago
So does this mean that sometime in 2023 you have to have a smartphone to use the subway? If not, would you need to purchase a standalone NFC capable MetroCard of some kind? Wonder how much that'll cost.
Exactly how Chicago, Philly, and London does it. You’d buy a $5 NFC plastic card if you don’t want to use your phone.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
djeeyore25 Avatar
104 months ago
Meh. Let's just switch to the honor system and have New Yorkers send in money for any rides they use. We're good for it.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tzm41 Avatar
104 months ago
Honestly, with the NFC embedded in the phone, Apple should cooperate with major city transit systems to allow owners to add a virtual transit card into wallet, and be able to just use it like a regular NFC card without the need to authenticate your phone using Face ID or Touch ID. Needing to authenticate will inevitably slow things down. And Android users have been able to do this for some systems for a while using non-officially supported NFC card emulators.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SamGabbay Avatar
104 months ago
This is the best news I got all day.

Sam
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)