News   Mar 28, 2024
 976     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 549     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 843     0 

Improving GTHA Transit via Tech (Apps, Maps, Real-Time Traffic & Transit ETAs)

Not sure if this is the right thread. I looks like the TTC will soon be launching Android and iOS apps for purchasing electronic day passes on your mobile device. Instead of showing a paper day pass, you'll be able to show the pass on your phone to a collector or driver. http://ttc.ca/Fares_and_passes/Fare_information/TTC_connect/index.jsp
That's pretty cool actually. It will help solve two problems. First, you can't buy a day pass from a streetcar or bus driver, only from a station agent, so that will help with people starting their day somewhere else in the network. Second, the day passes were large and bulky. I had problems with them occasionally falling out of my pocket.

Of course, this will be annoying to my cheapo friend who has been saving day passes from last year to reuse this year.
 
That's pretty cool actually. It will help solve two problems. First, you can't buy a day pass from a streetcar or bus driver, only from a station agent, so that will help with people starting their day somewhere else in the network. Second, the day passes were large and bulky. I had problems with them occasionally falling out of my pocket.

Of course, this will be annoying to my cheapo friend who has been saving day passes from last year to reuse this year.
An electronic ticket on a smartphone screen, without using a QR code or RFID. Interesting!

I would presume that they have a way to keep fraud low, like a daily color scheme that's not announced in advance -- so you cannot screenshot and use it another day. I guess this is used as payment validation. And to prevent fraud via same-day social sharing of screenshots, you're asked to tap the screen to make color change through a sequence only known to a fare inspector -- as a verification it's a real E-Ticket. Nice and simple!

Hopefully they can enable smartphones to behave like a Presto card (tap smartphone on Presto Reader) in these transit-company apps too, not just the official Presto app. Or being able to tap your Presto Card directly on your smartphone to do an advance transit payment for a daypass. (NFC-equipped smartphones can in theory act as card readers for Presto-cards). I don't think they would enable that level of functionality (yet).

However, just keeping an electronic equivalent of a Presto card on a smartphone would be convenient (tap your phone on any Presto reader). Even being able to use your phone as a backup Presto Card when you forget/lose your Presto Card, would be a good idea (even if it has to be a 'separate' Presto Card account).

Many millenials don't even carry wallets/cash anymore -- a phone is (usually) harder to lose than a pile of two or three 'essential' cards in your back jeans pocket. In some jurisdictions, these people are taking to Apple Pay like bees to honey!

Fare inspectors should carry around a pocket portable charger (a quarter of a kilogram) to do fare validation of dead smartphones! Dead phones usually wake up within 1-2 minutes of being connected to a portable charger. Nailed; dead phones no longer an excuse. The is Fare Inspection Of The Future...
 
Last edited:
Here's my vision for the future:

Install iBeacons in every subway station, and on every GO train, GO bus, streetcar and bus. The iBeacon would sense that a smartphone has entered the vehicle (or in a subway station's case, the fare paid area), and would automatically connect to the Presto App on the Smartphone, to see if the person has an ePurse or a monthly pass.

The iBeacon would also be able to detect when the person has exited the vehicle or station, and if another iBeacon isn't detected within a certain period of time, it would charge an as-the-crow-flies point to point distance charge to that person.

If the person is on an Android phone, the Presto App could connect with either the Presto ePurse or Google Wallet to make the payment, depending on the setting the user has enabled. If it's an iPhone, it would again either use the ePurse, or the user could sign in with their Apple ID and pay through their iTunes account. The user would have the option to manually pay, but I would think most people would just choose to have the phone do everything automatically.

For people that don't have Smartphones, the physical Presto Card could do the same thing, only it would require a tap off at the end of the journey. Like today, failure to tap off would charge the maximum fare for the route they were on. For visitors, a Presto-lite Card with pre-loaded amounts could be used.

For transit companies, this would also be a valuable tool, because it would allow them to track ridership, to better tailor route timing. For security concerns with that, they could follow the approach that Apple has taken with ApplePay, and have the iBeacon assign a unique Trip ID # to each trip taken, that would be independent of fare information and the card/account used. In essence, all that Metrolinx would be able to see is that Trip ID #1027648239 departed Station X at 7:48AM, transferred to Route Y at 8:10AM, and exited the system at Station Z at 8:27AM.
 
Bumping this old thread, as lots of developments since.
- Transit App is now an official recommended app of TTC
- Bike Share Toronto is integrated to Transit App
- Apple Maps now has transit directions
- Google Maps has additional Transit Directions features

There is now apparently a free skill for Alexa to allow you to aak your Amazon Alexa about GO train status:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B078M1XFDF/

It's already vetted by Amazon, and simply needs an "Enable" click.
 
Last edited:
There is now apparently a free skill for Alexa to allow you to aak your Amazon Alexa about GO train status:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B078M1XFDF/

It's already vetted by Amazon, and simply needs an "Enable" click.

Alexa, when will the next GO Train arrive?
Alexa: There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer.

*a hardly original homage to Issac Asimov*


AoD
 
City mapper is a good app to have as it connects to transit systems worldwide. I normally use it in Toronto but hen I was in Australia for a few week when I opened t ist asked if I wanted to switch to Transit in Australia. For the most part, it worked, however, it didn't have as much functionality as it does in Toronto.
 

Back
Top