Metro line M3 at Deák tér station in Budapest
The Budapest Transport Center (BKK) is getting serious about digitalization. Following a successful test phase, the “Pay&GO” system will be available across the entire metro network in the Hungarian capital from mid-April. This puts Budapest on par with international cities such as London and New York.
Anyone who rides the subway in Budapest is familiar with the procedure. Either you have a season ticket in the app, or you have to deal with paper tickets and the often outdated orange ticket validators. But that will soon be a thing of the past. As the BKK announced on Tuesday, the installation of a completely new generation of ticket validators began today (Wednesday, March 11).
The new system makes access to local transport easier than ever before. The principle is simple and follows the international standard of contactless payments. Instead of going through several steps at the ticket machine or in the app, all you have to do is hold your bank card, smartwatch, or smartphone briefly against the device.
Purchase and validation take place simultaneously – the moment the validator recognizes the payment method, the fare is debited and the ticket is valid without delay.
Even during ticket inspections, no paper receipt is necessary anymore; the bank card serves as digital proof, which inspectors can verify in real time in the system with their readers.
The new devices are being installed in stages and should be completed by mid-April. The BKK has set a fixed order for this:
Line M2 (red): The stations on the east-west line will be the first to be upgraded.
Line M4 (green): This will be followed by the city’s most modern line.
Line M3 (blue): The longest subway line will be the last to be upgraded.
During the four-week installation phase, two to five of the new devices will be installed per station, which will remain inactive until mid-April. During this transition period, passengers must continue to use the old ticket validators.
With the introduction of Pay&GO, other transitional solutions will disappear. Between March 9 and April 1, the NFC stickers and readers at subway stations that were previously used to validate digital tickets in the BudapestGO app will be dismantled.
The current expansion is part of a much larger plan.
While Pay&GO is currently mainly attractive for single journeys and occasional users, the system is set to become significantly more powerful in the future.
Functions such as “daily caps” are planned, whereby the system automatically caps the price at the cost of a day ticket, regardless of how often you travel. In the long term, season tickets will also be processed via Pay&GO. By 2028, the system is to be gradually expanded to cover the entire Budapest transport network as well as commuter trains and buses in the metropolitan area.
Budapest is becoming more modern and visitor-friendly. The elimination of ticket machines will lower the barrier to using public transport, especially for tourists and occasional travelers.
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Via MTI; Featured image: MTI/Máthé Zoltán
