Mississauga, Brampton, Ajax and Hamilton residents can tap credit card to ride GO Transit

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Published August 11, 2022 at 11:29 am

Starting today (Aug. 11), GO Transit riders in Mississauga, Brampton, Hamilton, Halton, Durham, Niagara and other areas can hop on buses and trains with the tap of a credit card.

The new fare option is also available to users of MiWay (Mississauga’s transit provider), Brampton Transit and Oakville Transit, say officials with Metrolinx, the provincial agency that oversees GO.

A debit fare payment option is planned in the near future and all new payment options will eventually be extended to include more transit agencies across the region, Metrolinx says.

“PRESTO contactless payment now allows customers to pay their adult fare on participating transit agencies with just a tap of their credit card, including those cards on your phone or watch,” Metrolinx said in a news release today (Aug. 11). “After a successful test run this past year on UP Express (Union Station to Pearson Airport train), more customers will have new and easy ways to pay their adult fare on more transit agencies in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.”

The UP Express pilot program will now be permanent as well, transit officials say.

During the UP Express pilot, more than 28,500 credit card fare payments since March 2021 and some 6,000 debit fare payments since last October were made using the contactless payment options.

Passengers using the new fare options going forward should make sure to only tap their preferred payment method onto a PRESTO device to pay, Metrolinx says.

“The easiest way is to take out the card they want to pay with out of their wallet, purse or phone case when tapping onto a PRESTO device to pay. This avoids a situation called ‘card clash’ and ensures that only one card is charged,” transit officials add.

When travelling on GO Transit or UP Express, customers must remember to tap off at their destination, in the same way they tapped on.

“If you tap on with your credit card, you must tap off with the same credit card. If you tap on with your phone or watch, you must tap off with the same phone or watch using the same card set up in your mobile wallet,” Metrolinx says. “This avoids any possible duplication of fare payment.”

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