OVPAY: Amsterdam’s public transport users can now pay for travel with contactless cards or NFC phones
Passengers travelling on bus, train, tram and metro services in the Dutch capital and surrounding areas can now pay their fares by tapping onboard readers or ticketing gates at the beginning and end of their journey with their contactless debit or credit card or with their Apple or Android NFC smartphone.
Public transport providers GVB and EBS have launched the OVpay service in Amsterdam as part of a national rollout that began earlier this year. It has now made it available across a number of regions including Haaglanden, Voorne-Putten Rozenburg, Waterland and other municipalities in the province of North Holland.
A short video in Dutch explains how OVpay works.
The rollout is scheduled to be completed by 2024 with OVpay due to add support for discounted fares and season tickets “soon” and the existing prepaid OV-chipkaart transit card “slowly being replaced with a new one” that will “add new services”.
At launch passengers in Amsterdam can pay their fares using OVpay by tapping in and out with physical or digital contactless debit cards issued by ABN Amro, ASN Bank, Bunq, ING, Rabobank, Regiobank and SNS, physical or digital Mastercard and Visa credit cards as well as via Apple Pay or Google Wallet.
GVB unveiled plans to offer a choice of contactless and mobile fare payment options in December 2020.
Amsterdam gets tap-in tap-out open loop contactless fare payments was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.