Clipper Contractor Announces More Delays for Full Rollout of Next-Generation System

Cubic Transportation Systems Inc., the San Diego-based firm with which MTC contracts to operate the Bay Area’s Clipper® electronic transit-fare payment system, informed Commission staff last month that it will miss its May 30 target date for meeting the performance requirements needed to begin bulk migration of more than 10 million existing Clipper cards to the next-generation Clipper platform. Cubic officials announced at the March 30 meeting of the Clipper Executive Board that reliability improvements, equipment upgrades and resolutions to other defects in the next-generation system would be in place within 60 days. Cubic did not announce a new target date for resolving outstanding defects. 

"We're beyond frustrated that the Next-Gen Clipper system is still not ready to start bulk migration," said MTC Executive Director Andrew Fremier. "A transition that originally was expected to last no more than three months is now coming up on six months...and counting. Our staff and our Commissioners take this delay very seriously. We'll continue to work with our transit agency partners to hold Cubic accountable for full deployment of a reliable, modern Clipper system."

Despite the problems that have plagued next-generation Clipper since its December 2025 debut, more than 1.7 million Clipper cards successfully have transferred to the new cloud-based system. For the week ending May 23, the next-generation platform handled 45% of all transit trips processed by the Clipper system. This includes 32% of all fares paid with either traditional plastic Clipper cards or on mobile Clipper cards plus another 13% by customers using a contactless credit or debit card. From Dec. 10, 2025, through Monday of this week, more than 1.7 million customers used contactless bank cards to pay their fares on Bay Area buses, trains and ferries.

In addition to accepting contactless bank cards for payment, the next-generation Clipper system delivers discounts to riders who use more than one transit agency in a trip (e.g., Muni to Caltrain or SMART to Golden Gate Ferry). These customers are only charged full fare for the first ride. A transfer discount of up to $2.85 applies on any additional transit agency the rider uses within two hours. By this Tuesday morning, nearly 430,000 people had used the next-generation Clipper system to claim over 2 million discounts totaling more than $5.2 million.