Why do Transit Systems in the US Rarely Accept Direct Credit/Debit Card Payments
In my experience in the US, it is extremely rare to find transit systems (especially buses) that take credit card payments on board. For example, you cannot simply walk onto a bus holding a credit card and pay your fare. Instead (unless you pay with cash), you generally have to load some sort of fare card or app with money, or pay your fare at a ticket machine at a major station. Why do transit vehicles generally not accept credit/debit card payments on board?
Best Answer
There is demand for the service (obviously).
Merchant fees are actually kind of an issue.
Speed is the big factor.
Having people do it while the bus is enroute is unsafe.
It's about dwell time, mostly
You know that a credit card transaction anywhere else can take a little bit of time. Now try it with cellular data (often flaky), and a line of people waiting to get on the bus. You get 4-5 people at a stop all pulling out credit cards, and that bus is now at the stop 2-3 minutes.
It may be holding up traffic if it doesn't have a special pad to pull over into. But the main issue is that all the passengers are being delayed while you switch cards to one that doesn't say "Declined".
You say "Well, why not do it on the road?" The answer is it's not legal to have passengers queued up in the front of the bus while moving, and the driver can't be distracted by fare-paying complications.
The merchant fees can be prohibitive for small transactions. It's well and good to pay away 3% for overhead, but when it becomes 30-40% of a senior or student fare, that really becomes hard to sell to the board.
It's also about approval time
The other factor is it is very slow to get payment systems approved and installed on buses. The speed at which the payment industry is evolving is putting transit agencies in a difficult position. It may well be that if they were making a cold start today, they could implement all sorts of innovative stuff, but there is a lengthy process to get things designed, approved, FUNDED, and rolled out. And after having done so, they want to sit with that system for awhile and not immediately turn around and do it again because of a bunch of innovations that missed their approval cycle.
The bus systems have rolled out their own electronic pass systems, and they were custom architected to satisfy transit needs, including time of processing, ability to work with no network, and fraud management. Quite often the passes are free (net of purchased value), e.g. pay $10 for the card at a drugstore and it's preloaded with $10. So it is as simple as "if you know you'll be using that system, go get one".
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Why do some sites not accept debit cards?
Debit cards are accepted in a lot of places now, but there are some places that will still not take debit cards and will only take cash or cheques instead. This is usually either because the shop or service provider is too small or the merchant fees on debit cards make the transaction less profitable.Why do some retailers prefer to receive cash as opposed to accepting a credit card as payment?
Certainty of Payment When you pay with cash, businesses know that you completed your payment, and there's not much risk of that payment evaporating (as long as they deposit the cash). The money could be counterfeit, but that's relatively unlikely. Cash is available immediately for business owners to use or deposit.Why do some places not accept certain credit cards?
To sum it up, there are two main reasons businesses might choose not to accept a particular type of credit card, or none at all -- fees and partnerships. Swipe fees can take a big bite out of a merchant's profits, especially in businesses with tight profit margins like restaurants, and every percentage point counts.Can you use a debit card to get on the bus?
Customers can pay their fare with the following major credit cards \u2013 VISA\xae, MasterCard\xae, or Discover\xae. Customers may also use debit cards to pay for their fare.Understanding Online Payments
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