TAP: One Fare Card for Los Angeles County, and the Caps That Came With It
Metro began replacing paper passes with the TAP smart card in 2007; one card now works on Metro and 25 other county operators. Since 1 July 2023 it also sets the price: day, week and month passes were scrapped for automatic caps — $5 a day, $18 over seven days, no sign-up. Ordinary bank cards were added in May 2026. Cash riders get neither caps nor transfers.
Live
📅 since 2007
✔ Editor-reviewed
📊 Impact
Fare capping worked in the direction intended: Metro's own FY2024 third-quarter report names capping, alongside fare evasion, as a reason fare revenue came in under budget even though boardings rose. No independent evaluation of the capping programme has been published, and the 43% of riders who paid cash before it started (Metro presentation, April 2023, reported by Streetsblog California) were outside it by design.
🎓 Lesson
Fare capping turns a payment card into a pricing rule: nobody has to find $100 up front to get the monthly price. The limit is arithmetic — a cap can only count taps, so the two in five riders still paying cash had to buy a $2 card before the policy could reach them.
Evidence🏛️ Official
Scale🗺️ Regional
Sources
↗ LA Metro — Fare cappingOperator source for the caps as they stand in 2026: $5 a day and $18 over seven days for regular riders, $2.50/$5 for seniors and riders with disabilities, $2.50/$6 for students. Carries the sentence that settles the automatic-versus-registered question: 'No sign-up necessary. You will automatically receive the benefits of fare capping.' Also confirms caps apply when paying with a TAP, credit or debit card.
↗ LA Metro — new fare policy effective 1 July 2023Sentence-level source for the start date and the abolition of passes: riders 'pay per ride with a TAP card until they reach their one-day fare cap of $5 or their seven-day fare cap of $18', and 'all Metro passes, including the one-day, seven-day or 30-day passes' are eliminated. Establishes there was no pilot: the policy 'has undergone extensive evaluation and analysis and was approved by the Metro Board of Directors last December', i.e. December 2022, and took effect as permanent policy.
↗ LA Metro — how to payOperator source for three load-bearing facts: 'Buy a physical TAP card for $2'; TAP is 'valid for travel with 25 transit agencies across LA County'; and cash on board excludes the rider from the benefits, since 'Exact change is accepted on buses that do not have All-Door Boarding. Transfers are not included.' The agency count is quoted inconsistently across Metro's own material — this page says 25, the May 2026 press release says 26, Wikipedia said 28 in December 2023; the entry uses the most conservative operator figure.
↗ Metro Primary Resources (LA Metro library) — TAP cards and universal fare media: historyMetro's own research hub for the timeline: the Board adopted smart card technology for TAP, then called the Universal Fare System, in August 2001; Cubic completed installation of fare collection equipment in May 2006; 'TAP began replacing paper passes' in February 2007; paper monthly passes ended on 15 March 2009. Basis for yearStart 2007.
↗ LA Metro — new app and contactless payment (28 May 2026)Operator source for the open-loop answer: bank cards, digital wallets and wearables are accepted 'on Metro and 26 TAP participating transit agencies' from late May 2026, one card can pay for up to four extra passengers, and 'Metro plans to expand the option to reduced-fare riders in early 2027'. Also the caveat that 'customers must use the same payment method in the same format for each trip' for transfers and capping to apply.
↗ Streetsblog California — L.A. Metro fare capping starts July 1 (7 June 2023)Independent press, and the source of the entry's main counterweight: 'One tricky downside of fare capping is that it will only be available to riders who pay via TAP card, not to cash paying riders', with '43 percent of Metro transit riders current pay cash' attributed in the article to an April 2023 Metro presentation. The underlying presentation could not be opened, so the figure is carried as a Metro number reported by this outlet, not as an independently measured one.
↗ Streetsblog California — contactless fare payment across California agencies (27 May 2026)Independent confirmation of the open-loop launch and its limits: 'In the lead up to the World Cup, LA Metro and partner agencies launched the ability to use any contactless credit or debit card, including mobile wallets, to pay an adult full fare', while 'LA Metro maintains that TAP Plus discount fares will be launching some time next year'. Reduced-fare riders were therefore still on TAP-only at launch.
↗ LA Metro — FY2024 third quarter financial and performance reportCarries the impact statement, in Metro's own words: 'Fare capping was implemented in the first quarter of FY24, which contributed to the negative variance', and 'while there was an increase in boardings, fare capping and fare evasion reduced the revenues collected.' Direct fetch returned 503; the sentences were confirmed through the search index of this document. No dollar amount is attributed to capping alone.
↗ LA Metro — TAP card on iPhone and Apple WatchOperator source for the mobile wallet step, September 2020; Android followed the year after.
↗ LA Weekly — the MTA is sitting on $1.3 million from expired TAP cards (8 October 2015)Dated but the closest thing to the forfeited-balance pattern: stored value does not expire, but cards do, and of roughly $2.7 million on expired cards about half had been transferred, leaving '$1.3 million' stranded. Metro's deputy executive officer for finance said 'We have not taken any of that value', while the agency retained a right to draw balances down at $1 per month. From 2015; not carried in the snippet.
↗ Streetsblog Los Angeles — Mayor Bass outlines her Metro agenda, including fare-free transit (23 July 2026)Currency check: as incoming Metro board chair for FY2026-27, the Los Angeles mayor pledged to 'develop a long-term financial strategy and plan for Metro to finally be fare-free' and to expand the low-income LIFE programme. A stated intention, not an adopted policy, so fares and caps remain in force.
📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “TAP: One Fare Card for Los Angeles County, and the Caps That Came With It” — Los Angeles, United States. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/la-tap-card/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.
🔗 Related projects
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🇵🇭 beep Card: Metro Manila's Concession-Run Transit Fare System · Manila
Opposite economics: beep's 30-peso fee is non-refundable and balances lapse; LA's $2 card unlocks the caps that replaced its passes.
🇺🇸 Metro Micro On-Demand Shared Rides · Los Angeles
The on-demand vans ride on this card too — free transfers with TAP, and no cash accepted on board at all.
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