Buffalo, N.Y.’s Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA-Metro) riders can now seamlessly and safely purchase and validate transit tickets — all from within the Moovit app.

Mobile ticketing offers a significant benefit in keeping both passengers and transit agency employees safe. By providing contactless fare payment that can be visually inspected or scanned at validation units, public transportation riders, and transit agency employees, no longer need to handle cash, cards, or interact with ticketing infrastructure, enabling them to maintain social distancing regulations.

That’s why NFTA-Metro is encouraging the Buffalo-Niagara region’s combined 1.3 million citizens to plan their transit trips, and pay for them too, using the free Moovit app, which has helped 865 million users conveniently and confidently get around 3,200 cities across 106 countries since its launch in 2012. Purchasing and validating transit tickets, via Moovit, has been enabled using Token Transit’s integrated and robust mobile ticketing platform.

Once a user launches the Moovit app, inputs their destination, and selects their transportation route, Moovit will:

• Display the total cost of the trip: Whether it’s a single bus trip, or transferring lines, Moovit will calculate and display the total, and breakdown, fare of the trip.

• Enable in-app ticket purchasing: Moovit users will be able to purchase transit tickets directly in the app, which means they no longer need to fumble for change or stand in line to purchase tickets or top-up passes.

• Provide a unique QR code for ticket validation: Moovit will display a digital ticket and QR code that can be visually inspected or scanned at validation machines.

Moovit’s free iOS, Android, and Web app combines official information from transit agencies as well as crowdsourced information to calculate the best route for each journey with urban mobility options like buses, rail, trolley, bike sharing options, Lyft, and Uber. Moovit’s multimodal journey planning engine, coupled with mobile ticketing, will enable riders to easily plan, pay, and ride.

Moovit also provides users bus schedules, a Live Directions feature with Get Off Alerts to provide step-by-step guidance for the entire journey, and Service Alerts so they can avoid disruptions on usual lines and plan their journey accordingly. Moovit also incorporates accessibility features, empowering people across the disability spectrum to use public transportation with more assurance. The app is optimized with screen reading features for low vision users, including TalkBack/VoiceOver capabilities, identifies wheelchair-accessible routes and stations, and calculates step-free routes. Moovit’s app is also designed with optimized menus and buttons for those with hand-motor disabilities.