The San Francisco Bay Area, home to the Golden Gate Bridge, hand-operated cable cars and Silicon Valley, is also at the
forefront of mobile transit ticketing and has digitized the Clipper card used with public-transport systems. Leveraging NXP’s
MIFARE 2GO digitization platform, the Clipper card now gives riders throughout the San Francisco Bay Area the option to use
Google Pay on their NFC-enabled Android™ phones to pay fares, purchase or add value to their virtual cards and seamlessly board
regional trains, buses and ferries.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC ), the
government agency responsible for regional transportation planning and financing in the San Francisco Bay Area, is now issuing
mobile Clipper cards using NXP’s
MIFARE 2GO. service, which
is integrated with Google Pay . The digitization
project, deployed by system integrator Cubic , lets people
use their virtual MIFARE product-based transit card on their smartphone to pay for travel, top-up and check their balance, and
benefit from convenient and safe access to transit services throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, a sizable region that
includes more than 7.1 million people in nine counties.
Introduced in 2010, and named after the Clipper ships of the 19th century, which were the fastest way to travel from San
Francisco to the eastern border of the United States, the Clipper card is used with 22 Bay Area transit agencies, including
buses, trains and ferries. The commercial launch of the digitized Clipper card will allow riders to experience a “touch-free”
and safer way to pay. Riders can tap and ride using their own mobile phones and do not need to touch card readers when paying
for transit – providing a similar experience like using physical cards, but added convenience as riders can also purchase and
top-up their virtual cards without touching ticket machines or interacting with a ticket agent.
Digitize and manage your MIFARE products with NXP’s MIFARE 2GO. Learn more watching
our on-demand webinar.
"Digitizing the Clipper card delivers a new level of convenience and simplicity for our customers. Now, anyone with an
NFC-enabled smartphone can seamlessly begin enjoying the tag-and-go freedom of mobile transit payment. NXP’s MIFARE 2GO
solution gave us a straightforward, simple way to make mobile transit payment a part of the Clipper service."
Carol Kuester, Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
"We want to make everyday things fast and easy with Google Pay. Commuters using Clipper cards can now use Google Pay as their
ticket to ride public transport in the San Francisco Bay Area making commuting stress free."
Alan Stapelberg, Product Manager, Google Pay.
"Cubic’s mobile solution builds on the highly scalable and flexible MIFARE 2GO cloud platform and Google Pay to digitize the
Clipper card to make life in the Bay Area more convenient and more enjoyable."
Paul Monk, Senior Product Director, Mobile, Cubic Transportation Systems.
For more information, please visit our
MIFARE 2GO product page.
