Rome weekly transit pass (CIS)

My memory from last year is that you insert it into the vehicles ticket machinr first time you use. After that you can insert the ticket on future rides (or just keep it to show anyone who may check for validated tickets- the do random checks).

Thank you for your reply. I'm back from my trip now but I always like to check back in afterwards in case somebody else is searching for the same information. Rick's Rome guidebook goes into detail about tickets and transit passes, but there is one thing that I wasn't quite clear on until I got to Rome. Apparently the CIS ticket (7 day pass) is available in two formats. According to the ATAC website, "Available formats: ON PAPER, ROMA CONTACTLESS CARD". This explains why the guidebook mentions to tap your pass against the sensors to enter the turnstiles in the Metro, but this only applies to the contactless cards. I wound up with a CIS paper ticket, so I validated it once on a bus on my first day (which stamped it with expiration date) and just held on to it for the rest of the week with the exception of the Metro where in order to enter the turnstiles, I had to insert it like you would a BIT ticket. I obviously did this correctly because I successfully passed a ticket inspection later in the week.

I was just there and found that contactless payment by credit card is now enabled on the Metro, buses and trams. The pass may be easy, but I believe you'd have to make significant use of the transit system to get full value. I believe that ATAC also now offers a reloadable cash balance card - you can check their website.

The credit card reader is red; the traditional BIT validator is yellow. On red buses the red reader is at the front door and yellow validator at the rear; the card reader at the rear door on silver buses [this is Italy, after all].

On several occasions the card reader failed to take our card [tried multiple cards the first time] - others on board explained that it wasn't working, so we got several rides for free [who knows whether we would have been dinged by a fare inspector in that case]. For one ride on the H bus from Trastevere, the bus was sardine-can full - we pushed our way through the middle door and became one with the crowd - too tightly packed for pickpockets. There was no way to get to the front to tap a card.

I was just in Rome a few weeks ago. If you are primarily looking for convenience, never mind the week-long ticket: all the ATAC buses have contactless payment now. So you can tap your credit card or activated phone against the reader, with no need for a ticket.

One thing that confused me at first: the contactless payment machine is different from the yellow machine where you validate the ticket, and is typically on the opposite end of the bus from the validation station. For the red buses, I found the payment machine in the front, and for the silver buses, it was in the back.

And I did have a very non-nonsense fare enforcer lady come through on our last day. Fortunately, we had paid, but she needed to check our credit cards in her handheld machine to verify that we had.