This new form of transaction comes as a result of the use of the Way2ride app from VeriFone.
VeriFone, one of the two organizations through which New York City taxis process credit card transactions to pay for rider fares (the other being Creative Media Technologies), has just launched a mobile payments app that will allow passengers to use their smartphones instead of a plastic card.
The application is free and will be available for use on both Android and iOS based smartphones.
The VeriFone mobile payments app is called Way2ride. It is designed to allow smartphone users to use their smartphone instead of a credit card, after having registered their card data in their phone. This is unique from the other mobile commerce projects that are currently being tested by the taxis in New York City because the three e-hail apps in those pilot projects are for calling cabs and not paying for them.
This makes the Way2ride app completely unique in its mobile payments features for the city.
The implementation of the Way2ride mobile payments app and system in New York City is meant to be only the start of a worldwide rollout for VeriFone. It said that it intends to offer the service in all of its network of 70,000 enabled cabs around the globe.
Mobile payments and apps are becoming an increasingly important and mainstream part of taxi service. Just recently, new legislation was released in Washington D.C. that gave the district’s area taxi companies the chance to add smartphones to their lists of acceptable forms of transactions. This has lead to a number of partnerships in that area, in order to make it possible for cabbies to take advantage of this new law.
Among them, some of the most notable new mobile payments partnerships in D.C. were airsMobile and USA Cabs. They created the TaxiRadar app, which allows the customer to hail a cab and, through the use of a smart meter (which complies with the latest taxi commission regulations in the district), can complete the transaction and pay for their fare at the end of the ride, as well.
Taxi drivers are discovering that smartphones may be the opportunity they’ve been waiting for.
Though digital wallets may be struggling and mobile payments in stores might not be taking off at the rate that was anticipated, taxi drivers are seeing the true potential in the technology for adding practical convenience and a new way to pay for the ride.
Cabbies are seeing the benefits in this technology both for themselves and their customers.
It is still rare for taxi drivers to be able to process transactions with credit cards, which means that many of them find themselves missing opportunities to make money every day. They find themselves having to send customers away when they cannot accept their preferred method of paying for the fare. Many complain of animosity from the lost customers, due to the limited options.
However, with mobile payments, this could entirely reverse the problem in a practical way.
There have been two major developments in providing mobile payments options to taxi cab passengers. The first is through an actual physical device that can connect to the driver’s smartphone or tablet. The second is through mobile apps to which both the driver and the passenger have subscribed.
In the first case, a device – often known as a dongle – is attached to the smartphone or table of the taxi driver. This allows mobile payments to be accepted by using the device to swipe credit cards. This is a highly convenient service that is offered by a number of different providers to small businesses and services such as cabs.
The idea has become so popular that there are some cab companies that will be distributing the dongles to all of their drivers so that they will have mobile payments available throughout. The advantage is that the service is quick and easy to use and doesn’t require the passenger to have a either a smartphone or an app installed on their own device to make it work.
However, some people are uncomfortable with making mobile payments on the devices of someone they don’t know. In those circumstances, apps are often available that allow them to not only book the car, but also make the payment for the ride through their own device, using a credit card.
In both cases the mobile payments typically come with a per transaction fee that will usually be in the range of 2 to 3 percent.
