After several delays, Chicago transit riders this fall will likely be able to navigate the city’s Ventra system via a mobile app.

Ventra — the Chicago Transit Authority’s $519 million fare payment system launched in 2013 — is developing a free app that will allow users to pay for transportation with their iOS or Android devices. But so far, the app’s developers have faced issues with user experience, technical glitches and a lack of a firm release date.

“We get one chance to make a first impression,” CTA spokeswoman Tammy Chase said. “We vowed to the public that (the app) would not be launched until we had tested the heck out of it — not just kicking the tires, but kicking the tires hard.”

Despite delays, transit officials are “100 percent confident” the app will launch this fall, Pace spokesman Patrick Wilmot said.

Chase said the CTA realized in 2011 it needed a new fare payment system because the technology being used was outdated. That same year, a new state law was passed stipulating Metra, Pace and CTA collaborate on a universal payment system. Chicago eventually chose Cubic Transportation Systems to develop Ventra, the current fare payment system.

“The Ventra app has always been envisioned as the next step in a modern fare payment system,” she said. “It’s actually the first of its kind in the United States in terms of being multi-transit agency, accessible via one app.”

After a contract was drawn up, $2.5 million was allocated by the three transportation authorities in Chicago — CTA, Metra and Pace — for the app’s development.

When the developers began to build the app in 2014, they mapped out a three-phase process. Based on the plan, in late spring 2015, riders would be able to add transit value to their cards, check account balances and view estimated arrival times. Later in the year, a trip-planning feature would be rolled out, and by early 2016 passengers would be able to pay for rides with their phones.

But five months later, the app is nowhere to be found, a release date has not been set and the project developer has not yet been paid.

“Until the app is launched, we will not make any payments,” Wilmot said. “That was established in the contract as a safeguard for the transit agencies in order to make sure we have an app that was fully developed.”

After its initial delay in May, officials partnered with 300 Chicago residents and the Smart Chicago Collaborative’s Civic User Testing Group, a technology consultant, to help improve the app.

Surveys released by the CUTGroup in September showed that about 92 percent of people who used the app liked it, citing usefulness, simplicity and clean design. Other riders were frustrated by password troubles, the tracking of nearby buses and trains and slow performance.

Northwestern students and local residents expressed a mixture of excitement and indifference about the app.

Weinberg freshman Sophie Anolick, who grew up in Evanston, thinks the app would further complicate an already confusing system.

“It has a lot of moving parts to it,” Anolick said. “I liked the way it used to be, where you just put $2 in the machine and got your one pass. I thought it was easier and a lot simpler.”

However, some individuals thought the app would be useful in tracking information otherwise offered by third-party services, such as arrival and departure information.

“I’m addicted to checking when buses and trains are coming,” said SESP senior Jessica Baniamin, who currently uses a separate app called Transit Tracks.

Gurnee resident Larry Raymer, 71, who takes the Pace bus regularly, said he hadn’t heard about the new app but expressed concern about its simplicity.

“I could see myself using the app,” Raymer said. “But I would like for it to be user-friendly, because I don’t know half of what my smartphone is capable of.”

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