Pay More, Get Less: Clipper Cards Crash On Day 1 Of Transit Fare Hikes

Public transit agencies across the Bay Area experienced fare payment malfunctions on Tuesday morning following a region-wide malfunction of the Clipper Card operating system. Shortly after 7 a.m., the Clipper Card X account wrote, “The Clipper system is experiencing an outage on all operators this morning. Please be prepared to pay your fare with another form of payment if required by your transit agency.” Every operator that uses the payment system was affected, said John Goodwin, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the agency that oversees the operation of Clipper Card services and transportation planning across the Bay Area.

The cause is being investigated, but Goodwin said the agency suspects the changes in fares scheduled for July 1 may be to blame. Fares were scheduled to be raised across multiple agencies, with some increases of as much as 50 cents. “This problem coincided with new fare information system changes that were introduced into the system. It is suspected something went awry when information about fare changes was pushed into the system at midnight. We contract with another company that actually operates the Clipper system. We are looking into it,” said Goodwin.

Cubic Transportation Systems is the company that oversees the technical operation and updates to Clipper Card. They have been a long-time partner of Bay Area transit operators and provide services to operators as far away as Ireland and to the U.S. military. According to Goodwin, Cubic and MTC are updating and testing patches to the system that were estimated to successfully be implemented by noon Tuesday. While the Clipper Card system was down, transit agencies like BART and MUNI provided free rides for passengers to avoid confusion and delays. Some operators reported no delays in service and told riders other payment options were available. San Francisco Bay Ferry spokeswoman Alexis Matsui said passengers were not able to tap on or off at terminals but advised there were still methods to pay for rides.

Returning to normal service after the Bay Area’s most popular fare collection system comes back online will be difficult, Goodwin said. “It’s going to messy for every transit agency, each operator will have a different type of mess to resolve,” he said.