Apple Pay with Express Transit en route to San Diego, Philadelphia and other cities

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Apple-Pay-Express-Transit-London
Paying for your journeys just got a lot faster.
Photo: Apple

One of the best features of Apple Pay is finally starting to roll out to more public transit systems in the U.S. next year.

After being adopted by Washington D.C. and New York City this year, Apple Pay with Express Transit mode will reportedly be adopted by Philadelphia and San Diego next year, with other major cities planning to support it out by 2023.

Macrumors reached out to the transit authorities at major cities across North America to find out their plans to support Apple Pay. The total number of cities with plans to support the feature is pretty underwhelming right now. Hopefully, more will get on board once they see it in use at other places.

Apple Pay for transit with Express Transit mode allows you to pay for fares just by tapping your iPhone to a terminal. You don’t have to authenticate the purchase with Face ID or Touch ID either. Some transit systems don’t have the Express Transit feature though, requiring all purchases to be authenticated.

Here’s which cities will get Apple Pay soon:

Philadelphia: SEPTA will support Apple Pay and mobile ticketing next year. The rollout is set to begin in the second quarter of 2020, but the timeline is not firm yet.

San Diego: SDMTS plans to add a new fare payment system in late 2020 with support for mobile wallets like Apple Pay. Compass Card integration isn’t in the plans yet though.

Toronto: Metrolinx will launch a limited pilot program to test out new forms of payment in 2020

Boston: MBTA will pilot Apple Pay with Express Transit mode in 2022. It will include CharlieCard fare card integration with the Wallet app for iPhone.

Montréal: STM plans to support Apple Pay around 2022-2023 for credit cards, but not the OPUS fare card.

The full list of cities that support Apple Pay for transit can be found on Apple’s website. Only New York City and Portland currently have it implemented in the U.S. Chicago supports Apple Pay for transit without the express feature. Beijing, Shanghai, London and all of Japan currently have the feature implemented as well.

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