Customer story — COTA

From Mobile Tickets to Open Payments: COTA's Fare Transformation

COTA continues to modernize its fare payment system, with digital channels now the primary way riders pay.

Agency snapshot

  • Central Ohio Transit Agency Operator
  • Bus Transport mode
  • Columbus and Central Ohio Location

The challenge

Before this upgrade, COTA’s fare system relied heavily on cash and paper tickets, limiting how easily riders could shift to digital payments. The agency wanted to reduce cash transactions on board, make self-service fare options more widely available, improve equity with fare capping, all while automating the validation process. 

Solutions deployed

The solution

Masabi’s Justride platform brought COTA both Open Payments, letting riders tap a bank card or phone, and Account-Based Ticketing via the Transit app or a COTA smart card, with fares caps for daily and monthly passes. More than 280 onboard validators round out access and speed. Ohio State University students can board using their COTA student pass inside the OSU app.

Partnership timeline

  1. 2021

    Launch of ABT mobile ticketing

  2. 2023

    Partner Portal and handheld validators

  3. 2023

    COTA tickets available in the Uber app

  4. 2023

    COTA’s employer and institutional program supports smartcards.

  5. 2026

    Open Payments goes live

  • 30% Increase in the number of riders using ticketing in the Transit app in the first month since launch.
  • 46% Of daily fares processed via Open Payments as of Jan 2026.
  • 11 months From contract signing to deployment

Tap to Pay reflects COTA’s continued commitment to applying technology to improve the customer experience while modernizing how our system operates,” said Sophia Mohr, Chief Innovation and Technology Officer at COTA. “Our team has worked to integrate this technology so customers can board quickly, receive the best possible fare through fare capping, and travel with confidence using the payment tools they already carry with them every day.