Devs, please don’t go ‘off the reservation’ by getting all fancy on us; please stick to using official Metro time-tested nomenclature (which has been used on Metro system for over 5 decades, even back when it was called RTD) by referring to lines by ‘line number’, ‘direction of travel’ and ‘city of final destination’ (eg 233 N / Lake View Terrace). Using “inbound/outbound” nomenclature is fixing a problem which wasn’t even broken in the first place, & only adds needless confusion (think about it for a moment: if you stand at ANY bus stop in the city, the bus serving that line/stop will be inbound before it arrives, and become outbound after it departs from the stop. But the problem is that same principle applies to the bus stop ACROSS the street too, so it’s needlessly confusing). And YES, I realize the conventional info. for the line’s final destination is available in a sun-menu, but why make users drill down into another sub-menu and exit it, when that’s a completely unnecessary step? Just stick to standard official Metro terminology, and show the info. on the main menu (I’m old enough to remember when app devs valued ‘elegance’ over ‘needless complexity’).
I’ve dealt with a lot of apps that are inconsistent with when it’s functioning at a high level, I’m pretty forgiving and patient. This app is on a whole new level, I wouldn’t even call it inconsistent…it’s very consistently not working. Either products can’t be purchased or I put funds in; see that it’s taken from my bank, and it doesn’t show up on the app account. Ive tried different bank cards, credit cards, Apple Pay…..it’s all the same. At times you get a nice bus driver that lets you on, other times you get berated for “trying to get a free ride”. LA is a big city with a large amount of its residents using their metro. A lot of us don’t live near places we can just load up tap cards and the app is essential to travel. It’s really sad that one of the “best” cities in the world puts so little money and effort into supporting their inhabitants.
Keep cash on you because this app I’m not reliable at all. It crashes in every which way an app can crash and doesn’t work at the most inconvenient times. If you rely on this app you will end up having to sound stupid and look in question when you have to explain to the bus driver that it isn’t working, won’t add funds, you added funds and it shows the funds are on your card on the app and the bus driver sees it also but it doesn’t work on the machine while everyone else’s works just fine. Such a disservice to the LA community to allow something that could be so useful and reliable be the opposite on a constant basis. Also when you submit a help request they respond to you as if you don’t know what you are doing. Trash.
For one of the largest cities in the USA transit app this is GARBAGE
How do you have this app active for this long without having it actually working? I try loading money and it eats it constantly. I try to add money to my card and it just randomly won’t let me add any money for hours on hours the app legit doesn’t work past 10pm everyday??? Your tap card will randomly decide to stop working on your phone and then when you try and add a new one you get hit with the “card is waiting to be activated”. Customer service is a complete joke. And finally the fact that the app itself will just crash for no reason constantly my god how can this experience get any worse for someone who has no choice but to take public transit?
Generally an update means new and improved features and functionality. Not in this case. After the most recent update, my card is no longer present and all history has vanished. I gave no way of knowing if card is being used by someone else or the current balance. I have tried to register my card as app suggested, but I simply get a message saying “already registered.” Past and present versions would not locate my position and always said “no service in this area.” I ended up using a third party app or Apple Maps to get current schedules and plan routes. Finally, the web site is down, which means I have no access to my account.
I used to use this every day for a virtual Tap card on my phone, worked great, could refill it instantly with in apple wallet. Until one day it stopped. No matter what I do, every tap reads “Invalid Selection” at a fare box and I stand there looking like an idiot. I even registered a new second virtual card, same problem. Now I use a plastic tap card again. But don’t use this app to refill that plastic card — it can sometimes take 2, 3, 5 days even until a fare refill finally registers to it. Just use the metro tap website to refill, and this app if you want to quickly check how much you have left. That’s about all it’s good for.
GPS, movement of the bus is inaccurate. Often I encounter that no bus is arrived on the scheduled time but GPS shows the bus is passing through at the bus stop where I’m waiting at. “Ghost bus “? This app doesn’t show the money you add to TAP and use it right away. You have to wait to use it for after 30 minutes. My laundry card even shows the balance immediately and able to use it right away. And if you don’t use the money loaded on Tap in 14 days, they take your all money. Often the status of loaded money shows just pending and it’s never activated to use. Poorly developed, unreliable and worst app for the customer.
Read the reviews and expected the app to not work when paying on the bus. But I haven’t encountered that type of issues yet. Only inconveniences are the bad UI design, and the loading times to reload your card. I would understand how that can be an issue if you don’t have enough for the bus at that moment. But it can be easily solved by checking your balance before you do your trips
I used it on an iPhone and it works pretty well/straightforward. I was really nervous because of the previous low reviews but it was easy to add funds and tap for the train (Not sure about buses though). One thing though is data is spotty in areas of LA so it can be tricky for you to reload funds quickly. So prep beforehand (No previous tap card required btw)
Tried to register my TAP card. Kept getting “server error”. Tried again until finally it said “card already registered.” Meaning it worked. Then I tried to add my credit card info. Photo taking wouldn’t scan card. So I entered my info manually. App didn’t like the 1/2 in my street address. Had to start all over and fudge my address. Finally registered my credit card, but app did nothing when I tried to add money to my tap card. Just kept asking me to purchase. I’ve never seen such a broken app! Guess I’ll be paying cash when I take the bus! MTA is in the Stone Age.
Has anyone else been having trouble loading fare through the app? It’s been giving me issues for weeks and really inconvenient when I forget to do it through the website. Takes up to an hour for it to be loaded on your card when purchase through the website. This app is meant to be a convenient way for commuters. Only convenient thing about is the knowing when the bus will arrive.
Disclaimer: I haven’t used this app for navigation at all. I use google maps - but the mobile card works fine. I was skeptical about this app after seeing all the negative reviews (especially issues reloading mobile tap cards). I’ve only used it for about a week, but the loading and reloading process has worked fine for me. •Charging me the correct amounts (free transfers for 2 hours). •Keeping track of my transit history. •Storing money on the mobile card. •Reloading card speeds are fine (I was on Wifi). Five stars. I’ll edit this review if I start having any of these issues I’ve read about.
Add money to the TAP Card app and still can’t pay from the app?
Okay, first time taking the bus from Ontario Airport to head West towards my destination. First time taking the bus ever in SoCal, in fact. Anyway, read up on how to navigate my way with buses from 2 different transit agencies, and how the process can be touch-less. Well, tried to pay and nothing to scan from the app. I never had a physical TAP Card with the info to register. The driver didn’t know how it worked either, but let me stay on the bus anyway. So I have funds on the Tap app if I ever figured out how to use it. Ah do ma.
I don't understand why this app doesn't have 5 stars. You just download the app and charge your tap card when you purchase value. It's very easy to do. I charged it this afternoon from my ipad and later on I was able to use it on the bus. I purchased $5 value and now after going round trip I've got $3.25 left.
My first time visiting LA and I got to say it has been a stressful experience with the tap card I got from the Apple Wallet. Aside from the initial balance I have been unable to add any money to it. It either fails right away when I try to manage the card on the tap app or from the wallet app it eats your money and does not add the balance to the card. Now I want to know where is my 10 bucks from Apple Cash and my credit card that are now gone without me getting the balance added to it. I just feel like a 🤡
don’t bother with this app. Use the physical card instead I know it cost the ridiculous two dollars for the card but you’ll save yourself losing money when you can’t transfer funds from one to another. Somehow I ended up with three cards and lost $16 on the two virtual cards that I couldn’t consolidate. Also, you can’t use a Bluetooth keyboard to set up an account and the only way to do it is on the smart phone. So you’ll spend a ridiculous amount of time typing in your information one finger at a time.
If you ever need the bus to get somewhere, leave ahead of time ALWAYS no matter how hard they try, they dont get the accurate time stamped as to when the bus will passed your stop. If the bus is delayed or the one you waiting on is not passing for whatever reason, and you look at the app to see where it is, the app will tell you "DUE NOW" while the bus is legit 10 stops away and 15 minutes or more late. Always leave with time to spare.
This is the worst, impossible to use garbage app. Metro website directs customers to download this app to purchase train tix in advance. But there’s no link to purchase tix. I added $ to create a TAP card but I still can’t find anywhere to purchase tix. Now the app is holding my $ hostage 🙄I’m also unable to find outbound train service to the station I’m trying to reach which is on the same line (Redondo to Hawthorne/Lenox). No schedules are displayed. I’ve spent way too much time trying to navigate this disaster app. What an embarrassment LA Metro.
If you need to park, just get a regular tap card. This only works if you are taking it without needing parking. Yesterday I paid for parking with my credit card since the machine kept saying it didn’t accept my type of tap card, I try that again today, but it said since I used the parking with my credit card yesterday without a tap card, I would need a tap card side to go up and buy one and come back down to parking so it added time and made me late. Like c’mon. At least make it functional.
I wanted to review my rides over the last 31 days. I was only able to look at this calendar month. I sometimes use a combination of agencies, like today, wren buying a day pass for 1 and, a multiple ride pass, for another. The app only allows 1 purchase in the cart, resulting in multiple charges. Not good. Please fix these.
The app stopped working by not allowing me to add stores value. I deleted the app and redownloaded it twice to no avail. After this malfunction, I called customer service to remedy this problem. They added funds to my card and said they would be available for use in an hour (weird to not be available upon payment but I digress). Several hours passed and the funds are still pending. Called customer service again and they are not responding. It’s unfortunate. 1 star.
I’m surprised for this to be a major city that the tech team is so amateur. I can only base this on the app experience. Sometimes things don’t load and you have to force close. You can use trip tools to plan your commute and the bus will never come. I’ve stood waiting over 30 minutes for a bus at times. It really only gets 2 stars bc I can use a digital tap card. Otherwise, this app is worthless.
It’s good to buy the card and load the card the first time but it doesn’t let you reload the card. when you click to add fare it gives you an error message saying it can’t load those features so i have to log on on the actual web browser if i want to reload my tap card. pretty inconvenient if you forget to reload and try reloading before the bus arrives which in my opinion is what the TAP app should be about.. convenience but uhhh yea it lacks that aspect.
Not the most user friendly. I liked transit app better. Problem, it doesn’t show rail lines often even though I am just a 6 minute walk from the C line. When I use trip tool, it provides few choices. Please include rail lines more and give me the choice to put it as a required criteria in the search. Thanks
In town for work, and I was able to register and purchase a card on the walk from LAX to the nearest stop without trouble. Added to Apple Pay and functioned as intended. Feel like i have to deduct a star just because of all the bad reviews out there, but was pretty convenient in my limited experience.
Takes sometimes MORE than 24 hours to load the card, and doesn’t indicate this—at least not in an obvious way. For that reason it’s not convenient and leads to awkward situations where the driver grudgingly let’s you on as though you’re pulling a fast one. Fix that and give the ability to order custom design tap cards in-app and Id give it 5/5.
No more $2 tap cards every time I decide to use the Metro. Takes a few minutes to set up and load up with some $. Then you just tap your phone on the tap console. Not sure why everyone is hating on this app.
Metro needs to allow TAP card accessibility to multiple devices.
I'm extremely disappointed with the Tap LA app. Despite having a single Metro Tap card, the app doesn’t allow me to use it across multiple devices like my iPhone and Apple Watch. This limitation makes it frustrating for those who want flexibility in how they manage their transit. In 2024, this kind of functionality should be standard. Overall, the app feels outdated and inconvenient. It's a 1-star experience for me.
The tap app is not working. There’s even been a time they took my money and didn’t load it on my card. If you have an iPhone, you can reload your card in the maps app. When you put in a destination change to transit instead of driving and it will allow you to reload your card from there when balance is too low. Must have digital wallet available. Hope this helps someone
I use the digital card to commute to work, but the stored value it shows in my Apple wallet does not update correctly. I’ve been caught off guard thinking I still had money left but when I went to scan at the turnstile it said I had $0 left on my card. Tried removing and re-adding the card to my Apple wallet and that didn’t work.
Not sure why everybody seems to be having trouble but it was an extremely smooth experience downloading the app and adding the tap card to my Apple wallet. Tapped it on the 30 bus line and it worked perfectly!
Be me, trying to add money: I try to add it through the app first, loads for 30 seconds until it tells me I can’t do it. “That’s fine,” I tell myself, instead try to do it through phone settings. I get the notification that it went through, but no money appears on my card, despite evidence of it going through. Try multiple times until I just decide to give up. Do not download this app. It barely functions whatsoever.
I guess this is what happens when government entities contract out things to the lowest bidder. You get lowest bidder quality apps. Can’t reload the tap card. Why even bother having an app? It’s trash and the fact metro wasted taxpayer money on a trash app is kind of infuriating. Waste money on an app that doesn’t work. Waste money on police that don’t work. Waste money building a rail system that with no grade separation making trains wait for a traffic signal. Waste waste waste
Every time I add money to my card through the app it doesn’t add it to my “stored value” so I can use the card. I says wait about an hr but I’ve been waiting a week and it still says pending. I have to call customer service every time and can’t use my card because not all bus drivers are understanding. This puts me in situations where I can get a ticket depending on what bus I’m riding. Please fix this problem/ bug on your next update or reach out.
Got this thinking it would make it easier to take buses and trains. It’s always a little annoying trying to make sure I have money on my TAP card. The problem is this app is so badly designed I can’t even add a credit card to pay for anything in the app. I keep getting an “invalid field(s)” message with no indication of who ch field has an error. It really seems like this app was designed as an afterthought. Don’t bother with it.
This app makes easy to reload my tap card at home. The activation of each reload takes some time. So what I do is reload my tap card the night before morning to get ready my pass.
While I love this app and it has been great the last few weeks, today it just won’t let me add fares on to my card. It keeps giving me an error message saying the transaction failed. Tried deleting and re-downloading, signed in and out, nothing. Please fix this. I love the app, but would like this bug to be addressed.
Never had any issues with it, bar one time where I wasn’t able to tap on immediately after I topped up. An auto add stored value when balance drops below $1.75 would be nice
e card fees was “pending” for a whole week. I contacted them and they said it works even though it says pending. Idk if it’s just me but that makes zero sense, there probably a bunch of ppl who just kept “pending” fares unused. It’s definitely worth adding a note that pending cards still work.
This app is a mess. Once I try to add money to the card from one of my bank cards in my Apple wallet the amount is being debited from my bank card but nothing comes into this tap card. In order to add money I need to delete this card from the wallet and then add it there again, with some money on it. I have lost a few bucks already - my debit card balance decreased, nothing was added to this tap card.
This app and card system is rubbish. Try putting money on your physical card and it’s available to use only 4 HOURS after the transaction despite being debited instantly. Combined with the confusing system of various private bus services running an intricate racket making you pay multiple fares on the same trip, this is enough reason to run as far away from LA as possible and never come back. Except in a car.
Why is there not an option to transfer out money? I accidentally added a tap card to Apple Pay not knowing it was for LA area or anywhere else that has tap uses. In Illinois there are no transits that take tap. I wish I could have my $25 back but I can’t find no bank statements of the purchase and the process would take weeks before I’m able to have $25 back. Not worth it.
A bit confusing to setup. It took time for the added stored value to update if done from the app. It’s faster if done from Apple wallet. To use your iPhone as a Tap device, you’ll need to transfer your Tap card from the app to Apple Wallet.
I’m sure it isn’t perfect because I can see all the complaints here in the reviews, but on my first time using the app instead of the card it’s pretty convenient. Might as well support this system until it gets better.
Download it. Add it to your Apple Wallet. Scan and go. It’s that simple. It’s always worked. Now when friends come into town I have them do all of that ahead of time and it’s worked perfectly for all of them too
Yesterday I added money. Today the "stored value" says X and then the "Pending Passes Stored Value" says another number. Are they processing things with an old fashioned credit card machine? This is 2 full years since I've used this and literally nothing has changed. Capitalism corrupted our government at all levels and now we have bozos making tech decisions. It's really that simple.
No stars if allowed. Do not use this app, if you need to actually be somewhere which requires a specific time to be there you know, like a job. Absolutely useless app. Loaded money, said it would take “up to one hour”. First red flag. Money should be available, asap what if had to take an extra bus that was unplanned? Now one is stuck in that unfamiliar location until the money is loaded. 2nd flag it has now been over 3hrs since loading the money and it is still “pending”. So if you’re stuck in an unfamiliar, who knows how long you’ll be there. I’m sure the City isn’t even reading these reviews and doesn’t care one bit.
Some buses that are supposedly due at certain times according to this app just simply do not show up at all. Real shame because you guys should be facilitating a public service here. Instead I’ve been made to wait around either in the hot sun or late at night when it’s dark waiting for the real bus to show up several times now. Not good. Please fix that.
Whenever I try to add some fare to my tap card on my phone, it takes up to 2 minutes to load and then hit me with the “sorry, we cannot load your products.” This has been happening for months now. Would’ve thought metro would’ve fixed this issue, since they stupidly added fares back.
Big surprise, an app from the city doesn’t work. such a shame because LA has such huge resources but they can’t find a decent web dev or troubleshooting process for their digital public services. when you try to log into your tap via the app, leads to blank white screen, it’s a reputable bug, makes using the app impossible if you’re a tap user.
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