New App Allows Fire Island Water Taxi Passengers to Pay More Conveniently

The option to pay for the Fire Island Water Taxi via credit card is available for the first time, thanks to a new mobile app called Fire Island mTickets. The app was developed by Masabi’s JustRide ticketing system. Fire Island residents and summer visitors should search for the app at the Apple App store and Google Play.

Fire Island Taxi Passengers no longer need to make sure they have cash on them to ride the ferry service, or dig through their pockets for cash to pay their fares. With Fire Island mTickets, users can purchase one-way and round-trip tickets by creating an account linked to their credit cards. For all future purchases, the app just needs the credit card’s security code to initiate a ferry ride purchase.

The app is being tested throughout summer 2017, with the hopes of making it official by fall. President of Fire Island Ferries, Tim Mooney, who owns both the ferry and taxi services on Fire Island, said the app will likely expand to ferry riders as well. The goal is to start on a smaller scale with the water taxi first to work the “kinks out.”

“When things slow down a bit and we work any kinks out, we’ll add the ferries,” he told Newsday. “So far, we haven’t hit any road blocks, but for the taxis, we’re talking about tens of thousands of passengers each summer. For the ferries, its hundreds of thousands. We just want to make sure we have everything in line.”

In addition to adding a convenience factor for passengers, Mooney and Sean Carlin, a water taxi manager, also think the app will help speed up the water taxi boarding process. “We’re excited. We had been looking to do something like this for a long time but didn’t find the right technology until now,” said Mooney. “Everybody’s carrying around the infrastructure on their phone already. We don’t have to invest in networking or hardware or infrastructure. You already have it in your pocket.”

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