BART upgrades fare collection machines to improve customer experience

Credit: Bay Area Rapid Transit

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) has announced that its crews have made several upgrades to its fare collection machines to speed up and enhance the customer experience.

BART’s Add Fare Machines, located inside stations which also serve as parking payment machines, now accept credit and debit cards. This upgrade is one of the biggest customer experience improvements that have been made to date for those who drive and park at BART stations, as riders can now use a credit or debit card to pay for parking at a machine as well.

In addition, BART also offers its official app as a method for paying for all types of parking at BART with a credit/debit card, Venmo or PayPal. Previously these machines only accepted cash, which was not a convenient option for many riders.

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This upgrade is also an improvement for all riders who must add funds to exit. In 2019, BART began rolling out ‘Add Value’ machines in the paid area that accepted credit and debit cards for adding any arbitrary amount of funds to Clipper cards. However, these machines did not accept parking payments and the ‘Add Fare’ machines were still in place, which often caused confusion about which machines accepted credit/debit cards and which ones were cash only. Now add fare machines allow riders to decide to either add the amount needed to exit or however much money they would like.

The add fare machines have also been re-programmed to accept $10 and $20 notes. Previously the machines only accepted $5 and $1 notes, which meant that people with larger bills had to use change machines outside of the paid area, making it more time consuming for customers. Upgrading all fare machines to accept EMV chip cards or mobile devices will be BART‘s next step in modernising this equipment.