Pop Pay As You Go FAQs

Get your Pop PAYG card online. The Pop PAYG card itself is free, but you must buy it with a £5 balance.

If you’ve been given or sent a Pop PAYG card as part of a promotion, to protect your balance and be able to top it up online, register it here by clicking on the ‘Register an existing card’ button.

You can use Pop PAYG on Metro, on almost all buses in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham and the Tees Valley, on the Shields Ferry and the Northumberland Line.

Pop PAYG works differently on Metro, bus and ferry. See below for more details.

• On Metro – pay for your trip by tapping in at the Metro station validator or gate at the start of your journey and tapping out at the end. You’ll only pay for the journey you have made and we’ll calculate the best fare for you.
• On buses – pay for single, return and day tickets from the driver using your Pop PAYG balance.
• On the Shields Ferry – single and day tickets are cheaper if you buy them from the ferry operator using your Pop PAYG balance.
• On the Northumberland Line (from 15 December 2024) – pay for your trip by tapping in at the station validator or gate at the start of your journey and tapping out at the end. You’ll only pay for the journey you have made and we’ll calculate the best fare for you.

You can Top up at any Metro ticket machine or online here and then load your purchase onto your card at a Metro station ticket machine, or load your purchase at a station gate or validator if you wish to start your journey.

You can also top up online and then load your purchase onto your card on these bus services: Stanley Travel’s 40, 40A, 40B; Local Link services in Redcar and Cleveland. Or top up at Metro station ticket machines.

Find out more here.

If you got your Pop PAYG card online, you don’t need to do anything.

If you were given a pop card by a member of staff, register it here.

Registering your card allows you to top up your Pop PAYG card online and load your purchase onto it at Metro stations.

It also means that it is protected – if it’s lost or stolen, you can report it to us and we can block the card so that nobody else can use it. We can then transfer any remaining balance back into your online account ready for you to load onto a new Pop PAYG card.

If you don’t register your Pop PAYG card and it’s lost or stolen you will lose your balance.

You can check your balance quickly and easily:

• online here (it can take up to 48 hours for this to be up to date)
• by using the Pop card checker app (visit Google Play and search for Pop card checker)
• at any Metro station ticket machine
• on your bus or ferry ticket when you use Pop PAYG on bus or the Shields Ferry
• on the Metro station gate or validator every time you tap out.

On buses and the Shields Ferry, you can continue to travel until your balance is –£3.50.

On Metro, you can’t start a journey if your Pop PAYG card has a negative balance (ie less than zero), so you need to top up your Pop PAYG card balance or find another way to pay for your journey.

If your card is in credit when you tap in at a Metro station, we’ll give you one last trip to make sure you can get to where you need to be, even if making another journey will take your card into a negative balance. Your card then can’t be used again until you top it up.

If you change your mind about using a Pop PAYG card, and have registered your card, you can apply for a refund.

On Metro you need to tap in at the start of your journey and tap out at the end. You do this by tapping your Pop PAYG card onto the reader on the yellow Metro station validator or the orange card reader on the Metro station gates – even if they’re open.

If you don’t do this, you won’t have a validated smartcard and you could be issued with a Penalty Fare Notice.

When you tap in at the start of your journey, we deduct up to the cost of an all zone single Pop PAYG fare from your Pop PAYG balance. When you tap out at the end of your journey, we calculate the cheapest fare for that journey and then adjust your balance.

Please note that, unlike on buses and the Shields Ferry, you can’t use your Pop PAYG card to buy tickets from Metro station ticket machines.

Pop PAYG is cheaper than adult single and Day tickets.

You can travel as many times as you like in a day. Your card is charged each time you travel until you reach the daily price cap for the number of zones you’ve travelled in. You’ll never pay more than the daily price cap for the number of zones you’ve travelled in that day as long as you tap in and out.

Please note that if you’re using your Pop PAYG card more than 3 or 4 days a week, it might be cheaper to buy a Metro Season Ticket. See Tickets for more information and current Pop PAYG fares.

If you don’t tap in or out, your journey will be incomplete and you may be liable for a penalty fare – so remember to tap in and out.

On buses, you use the balance on your Pop PAYG card to buy your normal single, return or day ticket from the driver.

Simply tell the bus driver which ticket you want to buy, then tap your Pop PAYG card on to the reader on the ticket machine. Take your ticket from the machine as normal. The cost of the ticket will be deducted from your Pop PAYG balance. Your new balance will be printed on your ticket.

Please note that, unlike on Metro, there is no daily price cap for journeys on buses.

Pop PAYG on Android can’t be used on buses.

Just tell the ferry operator which ticket you want to buy, and then tap your Pop PAYG card on to the reader on the ticket machine. Take your ticket from the machine as normal. The cost of the ticket will be deducted from your Pop PAYG balance. Your new balance will be printed on your ticket.

If you’re travelling on Metro after your journey on the ferry, you can buy a Metro Day Ticket using your Pop PAYG balance on board the ferry. If you’re travelling on Metro before you travel on the ferry though, buy your Metro Day Ticket from a Metro station ticket machine (ie don’t use your Pop PAYG card).

Please note that, unlike on Metro, there is no daily price cap for journeys on the Shields Ferry.

Ferry single and day tickets are cheaper when you buy them using the balance on your Pop PAYG card. See current Ferry Pop PAYG fares here.

On the Northumberland Line you need to tap in at the start of your journey and tap out at the end. You do this by tapping your Pop PAYG card onto the reader on the station validator.

If you don’t do this, you won’t have a validated smartcard and you could be issued with a Penalty Fare Notice.

When you tap in at the start of your journey, we deduct up to the cost of an all zone single Pop PAYG fare from your Pop PAYG balance. When you touch out at the end of your journey, we calculate the cheapest fare for that journey and then adjust your balance.

Please note that, unlike on buses and the Shields Ferry, you can’t use your Pop PAYG card to buy tickets from Northumberland Line ticket machines.

Pop PAYG on Metro is a travel product and it works as a true PAYG product with the cost of journeys being subtracted from the card balance as they are made. As such, when you are purchasing Pop PAYG from Metro (eg at a Metro station ticket machine) then you are buying the right to travel (once you have validated your ticket) and the balance on your Pop PAYG card is increased by the top up amount you purchase. The Metro station ticket machines accept cash, contactless payments and credit/debit card payments (including Apple Pay/Google Pay) as forms of payment, but not Pop PAYG.

Pop PAYG on buses (and the Shields Ferry) functions as a payment method for a single, day, return or transfare ticket, as an alternative to cash.  Therefore you can buy a transfare ticket on a bus using Pop PAYG.