More money was withdrawn from New York subway passengers than expected: OMNY system failed

On the morning of July 31, NYC subway passengers using OMNY were charged more than they should have been. The system mistakenly prematurely applied the new MTA tariffs, which will take effect on August 20, according to the New York Daily News.

A few weeks ago, the New York City Transportation Authority (MTA) decided to increase fares on New York City subways and buses. This will be the first increase in the base fee since 2015. Starting August 20, the base fare for subways and buses will rise from $2.75 to $2.90.

“Early this morning, Cubic, the MTA contractor developing the OMNY contactless payment system, erroneously and prematurely made changes to the software that should not take effect until August 20,” said Aaron Donovan, MTA spokesman.

Donovan added that by 9 a.m. the bug had already been found and fixed, and that anyone charged with the extra 15 cents would be compensated. The outage only affected OMNY users, and no additional fees were charged to MetroCard users.

“MTA thanks our customers for promptly reporting the error and apologizes for the inconvenience,” Donovan said.

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OMNY was developed in 2009, and the program began to work as a pilot project in 2019. The system is designed to completely replace the legacy MetroCard system and allows passengers to use their OMNY card to access the metro or pay directly with a credit card or tap-to-pay smartphone.

Currently, over 40% of NYC subway and bus rides are paid for using the OMNY system. However, the implementation of OMNY is facing delays, with the full replacement of the MetroCard system only planned for 2025.