New MCTS Fare Cards Launch April 1

WisGo message on MCTS validator – WisGo goes live officially on April 1, 2023. Anyone can pick up a free WisGo card now through June 30, 2023. Image from MCTS.

The Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) will finish a nearly year-long rollout of its new fare collection system, called WisGo, this weekend with the launch of new fare cards.

The new WisGo cards are the final element of the new fare collection system launch. Beginning April 1, MCTS riders will be able to pay fares with WisGo cards, which can be loaded using the new WisGo mobile app or at more than 100 stores around the county, including El Rey, Pick N’ Save, CVS, Family Dollar, Walgreens, Dollar General and Speedway locations.

The WisGo cards are replacing the transit system’s M-Cards. Riders will still be able to load money onto their M-Cards until Aug. 31, and fare validators will continue to accept M-Cards until Oct. 1, at which time riders wishing to pay with cards will need to switch to a WisGo card.

County officials held a press conference Wednesday announcing the final phase in the rollout of the WisGo system. They were joined by City of Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly, who announced that Waukesha Metro will also join the WisGo system, allowing riders to pay fares for both transit systems using the same mobile app or fare card.

“Employers continually expressed to me the need for uncomplicated ways for their employees to get to work,” Reilly said. “Adding Waukesha Metro to the WisGo system is an important step to help employees throughout the region by making it easier for riders to get to their jobs using transit.”

County Executive David Crowley said in a statement that Waukesha’s decision to join WisGo “reinforces that public transit is essential to linking the economy not just to one metro area, but across the whole state.”

Riders may notice that the new WisGo fare cards and app include branding for something called UMO. That’s because the WisGo system runs on the Umo Mobility Platform which was built by Cubic Transportation Systems.

The WisGo system includes new features like fare-capping and the ability to load money onto WisGo cards in real-time, whereas in the past it used to take up to 36 hours for money to load onto an M-Card. It also allows riders the ability to view and connect with rideshare services like Uber and Lyft. This is intended as a “last-mile” option for riders that need to travel beyond the reach of the transit system.

The new fare-capping feature puts a ceiling on how much riders can pay for transit, but not on how much they ride. All fares under WisGo are $2 and the daily cap is $4. So once a rider hits $4 in transit fares, the rest of their rides that day are free. Fare caps have been set at weekly and monthly levels as well. MCTS is hoping that the new app and fare-capping system encourage more ridership without a loss in revenue. Other systems that have implemented fare-capping have seen a “slight decrease” in farebox revenue, Tim Hosch, MCTS chief financial officer, previously told Urban Milwaukee.

More than 60,000 riders have hit fare caps since they went into effect in early March, Hosch said Wednesday.

During the press conference, Crowley said the WisGo system will make the transit system “not just more accessible, but more equitable for all our Milwaukee County riders,” adding that it’s part of an ongoing effort to “modernize MCTS”

The catalyst for the transition to the new fare system is the new bus rapid transit (BRT) service that will run between downtown Milwaukee and Wauwatosa. The BRT, branded as CONNECT 1, will include a number of new transit technologies, including off-bus fare validators. MCTS began rolling out the WisGo system in April 2022, with plans to launch the whole thing later that year. But by August, it announced that the new fare system was delayed until 2023. The Umo app did not begin offering all of its features — like fare capping — until March this year.