So far, so good for Portland’s public transit mobile ticketing app.
TriMet, Oregon’s largest provider of bus, light rail and commuter rail transit services, announced Thursday that riders have purchased more than 1 million tickets using its mobile ticketing app since it debuted this past September.
More than 80,000 people have downloaded the app, which was built by Portland-based GlobeSherpa and eliminates the need to purchase paper tickets from a machine while allowing riders to easily buy transit fares using an Android device or iPhone.
In January, TriMet announced that there had been 500,000 tickets bought using the app, and today’s 1 million stat means adoption has only picked up since then.
Portland is the first city in the U.S. to implement this system-wide. Places like Boston and New Jersey use similar mobile ticketing tools, but for just one mode of transportation at a time. The Rose City is also preparing to move to an electronic fare system in 2017, which will let riders pay with transit-only smart cards, bank cards, and NFC-enabled smartphones.
GlobeSherpa is a graduate of the Portland Seed Fund and raised a $1.3 million series B capital funding led by The Oregon Angel Fund in March 2013. The company is also working with other major transit agencies like Valley Metro and LADOT on mobile ticketing apps.
