You can now use Apple Pay Express Transit on the Washington DC Metro

Smartrip DC Metro Apple Pay Express Transit Mode (Image credit: DC Metro)

What you need to know

Apple Pay Express Transit is now available on the Washington DC Metro.
The feature was announced in December 2019.
It's now live for iPhone and Apple Watch users.

Apple Pay Express Transit is now supported on the Washington DC Metro for the first time, allowing travelers to pay by holding their iPhone and Apple Watch up to a SmarTrip card reader.

With the addition of Express Transit users won't need to authenticate in any way, making payments super-quick. NBC Washington has the details.

Commuters in the Washington, D.C., area can now choose to add their SmarTrip card to their iPhone or Apple Watch to pay the fare on Metro trains, buses and regional transit lines.The new Apple Pay option starts working on Tuesday, giving transit riders options in addition to physical SmarTrip cards, regional transit cards and cash, Metro says.

Metro claims that Washington DC is now the first city in North America to roll Apple Pay out across all transit payments, with other big cities hopefully set to follow suit in the future.

The lack of a need for authentication not only saves time, but also means Express Transit will work even when an iPhone or Apple Watch has run out of battery – something that standard Apple Pay cannot boast. Washington DC now joins New York, Hong Kong, London, and more in bringing Apple Pay to its transit system.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.