You need to register it on the DC One site for the transit subsidy. It will not show up on the Smarttrip account.

Anonymous wrote:I drive my son to school most days, but soon want him to start taking the bus. I'm looking at his DCOneCard on my Smarttrip account online and I don't see anywhere on the page where his card is attached to the free bus/rail program (even though I signed him up back in Sept 2015).

Does anyone know if I should see this information on my account when looking at his DC One Card online?

It could be because you didn't activate the DC One card back in September (needs to be used on the bus or Metro within a certain period of time). Call (202) 673-1740 and ask them what to do.

I drive my son to school most days, but soon want him to start taking the bus. I'm looking at his DCOneCard on my Smarttrip account online and I don't see anywhere on the page where his card is attached to the free bus/rail program (even though I signed him up back in Sept 2015).

Does anyone know if I should see this information on my account when looking at his DC One Card online?

You can register multiple Smartrip cards on one email but you can't register multiple DC One cards on the same email.

I will try this, but as I recall, I got to this step last time and it didn't work. THanks

The below 5-page thread from last fall had a lot of information/troubleshooting. http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/60/494892.page

I've pasted text of a specific post in that thread which was the most clear/helpful to me.

After getting DC one card
1) register card at Dcone site( email/ password )

Choose all options on where to register card( Dcpl,DCPS )

Click check eligibility , it should come back as " you are eligible)
Click " apply"

2) Now , go to wmata Smarttrip , use your existing acct or set up one and choose add a card

Add Smarttrip type number in upper right on back of DCone card, Give card a name

3) Now go to manage your smart trip, choose the card you just registered , go to bottom of page , you should see
Created ... Product... ( DC student free rail & Dc student Free R) on two separate lines with a date , ( 30 days from date you setup card)

You have to wait 24hours from setup to touch OneCard to a fare machine in bus or metro to activate card, must be done within the 30 days)

Now you are good to go , until next August!


-- Thank you for all this. I had gone to the DCOne site over the summer, but had never gone to WMATA. This school year he's only taken the bus, but he'd like to start going to school by metro. So, I just went through your tutorial and in step 3, the DC student Free R says its "in use" and the DC Student Free Rail Regular says "Not Used." Is that OK? Is it now set up for the Metro Rail?


--Yes but he should go to a Metro station soon and use it, which activates the card.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the kids need to be registered under separate emails. It is very frustrating!
I'm the OP and update- the pass suddenly started working again this week. So strange.

Thanks for posting this. My younger kid does not use his smart trip card but I've been trying to figure out how I will register it once I do need to activate it. This is very annoying. So, if you have 4 kids you need to register under 4 different email addresses? Seriously, in this day and age they can't figure out a way to streamline this? smh

Others have reported being able to do it under one 'family' account. Keep trying.

It's harder to set up initially than it seems like it should be but it is a great benefit.

I've tried to figure it out numerous times. If someone here has figured it out please enlighten the rest of us. I've even asked a friend I know that has two kids who use DC 1 cards and she wasn't sure how the kids set them up. ugh!

Anonymous wrote:Well, I work in IT and have two masters degrees and I gave up. It's not that I couldn't figure it out; it's that for the time investment I'd rather just have the kids continue to wave the card when they get on the bus rather than having to sit on the phone with some unhelpful person to figure out how to set up a family account.

Our school has a very large proportion of non English speakers and I have no idea how they're dealing with this at all.

I hear you. You're fortunate your kids are bus commuters, rather than rail. Also some bus drivers are more persnickety than others about swiping the card.

I pray my kids never lose or damage their cards - hoping they can get through high school on their 6th and 7th grade photos.

Well, I work in IT and have two masters degrees and I gave up. It's not that I couldn't figure it out; it's that for the time investment I'd rather just have the kids continue to wave the card when they get on the bus rather than having to sit on the phone with some unhelpful person to figure out how to set up a family account.

Our school has a very large proportion of non English speakers and I have no idea how they're dealing with this at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the kids need to be registered under separate emails. It is very frustrating!
I'm the OP and update- the pass suddenly started working again this week. So strange.

Thanks for posting this. My younger kid does not use his smart trip card but I've been trying to figure out how I will register it once I do need to activate it. This is very annoying. So, if you have 4 kids you need to register under 4 different email addresses? Seriously, in this day and age they can't figure out a way to streamline this? smh

Others have reported being able to do it under one 'family' account. Keep trying.

It's harder to set up initially than it seems like it should be but it is a great benefit.

Anonymous wrote:All of the kids need to be registered under separate emails. It is very frustrating!
I'm the OP and update- the pass suddenly started working again this week. So strange.

Thanks for posting this. My younger kid does not use his smart trip card but I've been trying to figure out how I will register it once I do need to activate it. This is very annoying. So, if you have 4 kids you need to register under 4 different email addresses? Seriously, in this day and age they can't figure out a way to streamline this? smh

Anonymous wrote:Ours have never worked. Fortunately, they mainly take the bus and the bus driver just waves at them once they flash the card. I tried to activate the transit subsidy and got stuck in password hell (it wouldn't let me have 3 kids with one email address) so since we only use if for bus I just said f it.

Exactly our situation. Word for word.

All of the kids need to be registered under separate emails. It is very frustrating!
I'm the OP and update- the pass suddenly started working again this week. So strange.