‘Kids go cashless’: Students embracing smart cards – Transport Board

A new era in public transport has begun as schoolchildren now use personalised smart cards to board buses – a major milestone in the Transport Board’s transition to a fully cashless fare system.

In one of the boldest moves yet towards digital convenience, every school across the island has completed registration for the programme, with thousands of students now tapping and riding for free — an unprecedented change set to expand across the network in the coming months.

Chief Operations Officer Lynda Holder told Barbados TODAY the phased rollout has already reached every school on the island.

She said: “We had discussed that there would be further activity on the cashless system and that we were going to move in different sections. So I’m pleased to be able to say that we would have gone into all the schools at the end of last term. And we spent that period and the vacation making sure we were able to get cards to the schoolchildren.”

Under the new system, each student receives a personalised card issued by their school, allowing them to tap and board seamlessly. Holder confirmed that all schools now have children registered for the programme. The first card is free, with replacements available for $5.

Phase one of the project, which began in December, focused on seniors. All old-age pensioners have since been able to tap their Trident ID cards to board buses. If a card has not yet been pinned or registered, drivers verify travel via a tablet, and passengers can even show their old ID for manual approval. Like schoolchildren, these elderly passengers ride for free.

Plans are also in place to expand the system to paying commuters.

“The wider society is presently still paying cash. But they’re the ones who will then be given the card that they can top up and use to pay,” Holder explained, noting that no exact timeframe has been set for that particular rollout.

Once that aspect of the programme is in place, it will allow commuters to make smart card payments with real-time bus tracking via the Transit BB mobile app, enabling commuters to monitor bus locations, track expected arrival times, and receive delay notifications.

(SZB)