The Copper Card is a

contactless smartcard A contactless smart card is a contactless credential whose dimensions are credit card size. Its embedded integrated circuits can store (and sometimes process) data and communicate with a terminal via NFC. Commonplace uses include transit ticket ...

fare collection system used by

Valley Metro The Valley Metro Regional Public Transportation Authority, more popularly known as Valley Metro, is the unified public brand of the regional transit system for the Phoenix metropolitan area. Within the system, it is divided between Valley Met ...

in Metro Phoenix, Arizona. The Copper Card and the Valley Metro mobile app are accepted on

Valley Metro Rail Valley Metro Rail is a light rail system serving the Phoenix metropolitan area in Arizona, USA. The network, which is part of the Valley Metro public transit system, began operations on December 27, 2008. In , the system had a ridership of , ...

Valley Metro Bus Valley Metro Bus is the public transit bus service in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. Valley Metro Bus provides local, regional, express, and rural bus services in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area (as well as the community of Ajo in Pim ...

, and

Valley Metro Streetcar The Valley Metro Streetcar (S Line) known as the Tempe Streetcar during planning, is a Streetcars in North America, modern streetcar in Tempe, Arizona, operated by Valley Metro. The line serves downtown Tempe, Tempe Town Lake, and the Arizona ...

services. The Copper Card replaces Valley Metro's paper passes and tickets. Daily, weekly, and monthly passes are available with

fare capping Fare capping is a feature of public transport fare collection systems, which allows passengers to earn an Transit pass, unlimited-ride pass by paying single-ride fares. Typically, passengers pay a single-ride fare each time they use public transpo ...

, which automatically credits the cost of individual trips towards a pass. Valley Metro began researching new payment systems in 2015, following the passage of the Proposition 104 transit tax measure. Valley Metro and the city of Phoenix awarded a contract to provide the system to Australian firm Vix Technology in 2020. Mobile payments were added to the Valley Metro app in March 2023, and the first Copper Cards were distributed in early 2024. The Copper Card system was officially launched in August 2024 and replaced all paper passes at the end of October 2024.

Technology

The Copper Card is a

, the same size as a credit card. Value can be added to Copper Cards at many major retailers that sell

gift cards A gift card, also known as a gift certificate in North America, or gift voucher or gift token in the UK, is a prepaid stored-value money card, usually issued by a retailer or bank, to be used as an alternative to cash for purchases within a p ...

, using an existing payments network maintained by InComm Payments. This technology requires no special hardware at retailers, allowing Copper Cards to be sold on gift card racks at national and local retailers throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area. The accompanying Valley Metro mobile app is available for

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

and

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

devices, and is free.

History

Predecessors

Since the 1990s, Valley Metro has adopted innovative solutions for fare payment. Phoenix Transit System, a predecessor of Valley Metro, created an innovative postpaid billing system for employer-sponsored passes in 1991. This system, marketed as the Bus Card Plus, used an early form of

, where employers were charged for their employees' rides up to the cost of a monthly bus pass. Bus fareboxes were equipped with magnetic stripe card readers, which were built in-house. In 1995, Valley Metro began accepting MasterCard and

Visa Visa most commonly refers to: * Travel visa, a document that allows entry to a foreign country * Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Vi ...

credit cards onboard buses. The acceptance of credit cards onboard buses was initially viewed as a major innovation, but it had numerous shortcomings. Credit card transactions were not processed in real time, due to technical and financial limitations. Instead, credit card information was downloaded from the fareboxes at bus garages, and charges were submitted to MasterCard and Visa weekly. This method saved money on processing fees, but it made Valley Metro liable for declined or fraudulent transactions. The cost of fraudulent transactions proved to be too high, and Valley Metro stopped accepting credit cards in 2002. Valley Metro introduced its previous system of paper bus passes in 2007. Buses accepted cash payments and paper daily, weekly, and monthly passes, and paper tickets were sold at light rail stations. This system used proprietary hardware made by Scheidt & Bachmann and was not easily expandable. The Bus Card Plus program for employer-sponsored passes was rebranded as the Platinum Pass, using a new proprietary smartcard.

Proposal

Valley Metro and the city of Phoenix began researching new fare payment systems in 2015, following the passage of the Proposition 104 transit tax measure. The city of Phoenix led the project and defined four goals for a new system: improved customer-facing technology, the ability to collect better statistics, improved distribution networks for fare media, and long-term resilience. In 2018, the new system was expected to be fully operational by 2021. Valley Metro and the city of Phoenix awarded a 19-year contract to

Vix Technology Vix Technology (Vix) is an Australian company that designs, supplies and operates automated fare collection (AFC) systems, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), access, payment and passenger information display systems (PIDS) for the publi ...

in July 2020. The contract includes equipment, technology, and services for a new fare collection system for all Valley Metro services, including buses and light rail.

Launch

A new Valley Metro

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...

was launched in 2021, and mobile payments within the app became available as a pilot program in 2022. Installation of new card readers, which also support the mobile app, began on buses and at light rail stations in late 2022. Mobile payments were fully accepted across bus and light rail services beginning in February 2023. Fares in the app can be purchased with a credit or debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or cash using the Retail Network. The Valley Metro App works with a QR code in the mobile app that functions either as an Adult Copper Card, or a reduced fare Copper Card, available only with a reduced fare account. Some special events will issue a special pass via the Valley Metro Mobile App bundled with a special event ticket, such as a concert, or a sporting event (For example, NCAA Final Four). The ability to associate a special card such as the Platinum card will be available to add to the app in the future. The installation of the Copper Card system was delayed due to supply chain disruptions in the wake of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. In April 2024, ADA, Platinum, and A+ Copper Cards were activated to use on rail and buses. These cards are issued to disabled individuals, employees of major employers, and students respectively. On August 19, 2024, Valley Metro officially launched the Copper Card. With the full launch of the system, retail stores began selling Copper Cards including

Albertsons Albertsons Companies, Inc. is an American grocery company founded and headquartered in Boise, Idaho. With 2,253 stores as of the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 and 270,000 employees as of fiscal year 2019, the company is the second-large ...

, CVS,

Safeway Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, delicatessen, floral and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee shops, and veh ...

, and

Walgreens Walgreens is an American pharmacy store chain. It is the second largest in the United States, behind CVS Pharmacy. As of March 2025, the company operated more than 8,700 stores in the U.S. Walgreens has been the subject of a number of lawsuit ...

and convenience stores including

Circle K Circle K Stores, Inc. is a Canadian-American chain of convenience stores headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, and owned by Alimentation Couche-Tard, Alimentation Couche-Tard, Inc., based in Laval, Quebec. Founded in 1951 in El Paso, Texas, the comp ...

. Valley Metro stopped honoring paper

magnetic stripe The term digital card can refer to a physical item, such as a memory card on a camera, or, increasingly since 2017, to the digital content hosted as a virtual card or cloud card, as a digital virtual representation of a physical card. They shar ...

passes on October 28, 2024.

Rates

The Copper Card and the Valley Metro mobile app support

, branded as Smart Fare. Fare capping credits each single ride fare towards the cost of a daily, weekly, and monthly pass. Daily, weekly, and monthly passes are no longer sold up front, and are activated by fare capping once they are earned. The Copper Card is accepted on Valley Metro bus services, including local, RAPID, and express services. It is also accepted on Valley Metro Rail and will be accepted on the

Streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

when it begins to charge fares on August 4, 2025. The Copper Card is not yet accepted on paratransit services or rural route 685 to Ajo though plans are in place to integrate these services into the fare system in the future. It is planned to allow the Copper Card and associated Valley Metro app account to be able to be used on Microtransit services and/or ride share services in the future.

Card variants

References

External links

* {{American smartcards Contactless smart cards Valley Metro Fare collection systems in the United States