A new update of the Google Maps app will allow paying for public transport in Madrid with Google Pay
Google will soon allow to buy public transport tickets or pay parking meters using Google Pay, with Google Maps as a hook. In the US, the company will even allow the purchase of transport passes for some cities without having to install the applications of the different local agencies on the phone.
Madrid will be the first Spanish city to offer this service. According to company sources, the show will arrive in the coming weeks. In order to use it, users will need to have an active Google Pay account (Google’s mobile payment service) on their phone and, obviously, also the Google Maps app.
Google has not clarified whether this service will also allow paying for travel on the metro network in the future, which is testing different options to facilitate mobile payment (now it is necessary to use a special transport card).
The new service will be compatible with more than 80 public transport agencies around the world, although at first it will focus mainly on urban transport in large American cities, such as San Francisco or New York. In many of these cities you could already pay from your mobile, but using the virtual wallet application of the phone and NFC, or apps designed by the transport agencies themselves.
In Madrid, the Municipal Transport Company (EMT) announced last year a payment system using QR codes. When accessing the bus, the traveler uses the camera of his smartphone to capture the QR code that the validator shows and pay for the journey, but, until now, it was necessary to have a specific app to make this payment.
PARKING METERS
In addition to paying for public transport, the Google Maps application will also allow you to pay for parking meters. This option for the moment will be limited to the US, where the company has reached an agreement with the providers Passport and ParkMobile so that it is possible to add money to the meter from the app itself in numerous car parks and garages in the country.
This update to Google Maps is one of the most relevant for the service since the announcement of the detection of the color of traffic lights, which was implemented in 2020. Before, in 2019, the app began to show road radars in real time .
At the beginning of this year, Google developed a system to also show the closest gas stations, even going so far as to show prices and recommend the cheapest ones in the environment of the trip being made.