The Madrid public transport card is essential to use services such as the metro, city buses and intercity buses, but the era of plastic is behind us; For several years, it has been possible to recharge it using your mobile phone, and since last year, it has been possible to completely replace it with an Android smartphone.
On Android devices, this application is doubly useful, since It is based on Google Wallet, the official Google Wallet application that allows you to carry all types of virtual cards with you and make mobile payments with your account. This integration makes the installation of the application highly recommended, and in fact, the goal is to completely end the use of the physical plastic card.
In this way, it is now perfectly possible to use the mobile phone to have the Virtual Transport Card, in addition to accessing the good metrobus for 10 trips for 6.10 dollars which we can get directly from the application. However, installing and operating this application can be somewhat complicated, so it’s good to remember what we need.
What do we need
The official application to carry the Madrid virtual transport card has certain requirements that we must take into account before installing and using it. The main thing is that the mobile phone must be relatively new and have at least Android 7.0 or higher. Another fundamental detail is that the mobile must have NFC technologywhich is normally used for “contactless” payments, but in this case it will be used to pass the cell phone through the turnstile or validator and be able to read our virtual card.
Something very important that we need to do before installing the transportation app is install Google Wallet on our mobile
Finally, we must not forget to use the application when we use public transport in Madrid; This seems logical, but since this application is still in testing, It will stop working if we don’t use it “regularly”, according to the conditions of participation in the pilot test. The good news is that after the pilot program ends, the virtual card will continue to work without problems.
How to use the Madrid transport app
Once we have downloaded and installed Google Wallet, if we do not already have it, we can install the Virtual Transportation Card application; Here comes the simple part, entering our payment information with the credit or debit card that will allow us to purchase the transportation vouchers.
During this pilot test, only one title will be available: Metrobus 10 journeys. It is valid on the same transport operators as the physical card:
- Madrid Metro and ML1
- Madrid EMT
- Line 500 (Prisei) and lines 601 and 602 (Alacuber)
To use the application instead of the card, we must start Google Wallet (for example, through the shortcut of our cell phone) and select the Madrid Transport Consortium virtual card. All you have to do is pass your mobile phone near the turnstile or validator so that it can read the card data, just like with a traditional card.
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