The Klappið payment scanners for capital area bus service Strætó will begin to be replaced with a scanners that offer a touch-free payment system this December, Vísir reports.
The Klapp payment system began just over a year ago, with the original Strætó app phased out. However, since then regular bus riders have complained that the system is clumsy at best, and in some cases simply does not function.
Some months in, even the managing director of Strætó at the time acknowledged that the system was less than ideal.
As bus fares have been sharply increased while services have been cut in order to make up for the lack of money the government has devoted to public transit, Strætó saw the writing on the wall and have decided to make payments easier.
The touch-free scanners will begin to be phased in this December. This will allow riders to pay their fares with cards or their phones, using apps such as Google Wallet, and will hopefully make for a more painless experience.
This does not solve Strætó’s financial difficulties, however. Whereas other countries have put billions into supporting mass transit–it being a public service–the Icelandic government has only given 120 million ISK to Strætó, which is “a piece of a piece of what we need,” according to Strætó managing director Jóhannes Svavar Rúnarsson.
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