Apple Pay support is coming to Los Angeles Metro's transit cards

By Joe Wituschek
published

Apple Pay Japan Big
Apple Pay Japan Big (Image credit: Apple)

What you need to know

  • The Los Angeles Metro is adding support for Apple Pay.
  • Riders will be able to pay for their fare with an iPhone or Apple Watch.
  • Support will be rolling out by the end of the year.

Apple Pay support has been rolling out to major transit authorities over the last few years, and it looks like it is poised to start operations in another major hub soon.

Reported by MacRumors, the Los Angeles Metro has announced that its TAP transit cards will begin supporting Apple Pay later this year. The LA Metro posted to its Twitter account saying that "your TAP card is coming to iPhone and Apple Watch this year."

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Adding your TAP transit card to Apple Pay will allow customers of the Los Angeles Metro system to pay for their train or bus rides with their iPhone or Apple Watch instead of having to carry around a physical metro card. In order to pay for your ride, you will simply authenticate and hold your device near a TAP card reader. Customers can also turn on Express Transit to remove the need for authentication if they want to make things even quicker.

According to the report, The LA Metro has been revamping its TAP system and originally planned to roll out support for Apple Pay last year, but that was delayed until "sometime in 2020."

The LA Metro said last year that it was working with Apple to add mobile payment support for iPhones by the end of 2019, but the rollout didn't end up happening and work on the transition continues. In a tweet today, the LA Metro said that iPhone and Apple Watch support for TAP cards will be coming sometime in 2020.

Chicago, Portland, and New York City have already added support for Apple Pay on their transit systems, with many more across the world (opens in new tab).

Joe Wituschek
Joe Wituschek
Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.