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Goodbye Breeze Card? MARTA To Roll Out Mobile Ticketing System

July 6th, 2017

Passengers board a MARTA train during the evening rush hour in Atlanta, Friday, March 31, 2017. Officials say commuter behavior shifted quickly after a section of Interstate 85 in Atlanta collapsed amid a massive fire, shutting down the busy highway for at least the next several months. Keith Parker, CEO of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid … Continued

David Goldman / Associated Press

Starting this weekend, blue Breeze Cards will no longer work on MARTA buses and at rail stations. They’re being replaced by silver Breeze Cards, which the transit agency says are more secure because of their embedded computer chips.

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Meanwhile, MARTA is working on a mobile payment system so you can get rid of cards altogether and use a smartphone to pay for your ride.

MARTA will pay Kapsch, a Virginia-based IT firm, $8.5 million to build and roll out a mobile payment system system-wide over the next few years.

You would use a mobile app to order and pay for tickets. Once onboard, trains and buses would have “electronic validator” machines to confirm payment.

For an approximately additional $2.9 million, other area transit systems could fully integrate with and use the same mobile ticketing system.

CobbLinc and the State Road & Tollway Authority (SRTA) buses said they expect the mobile ticketing system to be rolled out in 2018.

MARTA paid Kapsch $80,000 in 2015 to do a test run of the program.

The city of Atlanta said for now it will continue to offer the Streetcar Mobile App in addition to MARTA’s new mobile app. The city also said it is currently working with MARTA, SRTA, CobbLinc and Gwinnett County Transit to offer free transfers on the Atlanta Streetcar.