Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

[rbt]

Presumably Presto will ultimately give you a better deal than just using a credit card. I'd expect that they'd ultimately offer better pricing to those using Presto - presumably they'd have to pay less service charges to VISA/Mastercard/Interac per transaction.

I'm going to be seriously pissed if they aren't bundling their charges to their payment processor. That's an pretty damn standard feature at this point for low value transaction processors.

First charge should be a single cash fare but at that point they know the card/account is valid.
For your second trip they can authorize and hold for a non-trivial amount ($20) and come up with a final charge calculated at the end of a reasonable period (1 week to 1 month, or when the user hits $20 in services) and charge what the customer actually used and release the hold/begin a new hold. Email the customer an invoice showing individual line-items when it happens.

$20 could be as high as a monthly pass value instead if users want fewer line-items on their bill.

Combining of small value charges is actively encouraged by Visa/Mastercard. Presto has absolute control over when the actual charge occurs.

 

[nfitz]

I'm going to be seriously pissed if they aren't bundling their charges to their payment processor. That's an pretty damn standard feature at this point for low value transaction processors.

I'm sure they would ...

... but I still expect the best prices would be using Presto. Currently I have the annual MDP pass for $117.75 a month with a 1-year minimum. I doubt that this product would be available using just Visa/Mastercard - at least until the entire thing matures. And is it even convenient to a user ... I'll certainly give my metropass to other family members some days ... and even to co-workers just popping out to get something at the office. I'm less likely to give them my credit card - even if I do trust them!

 

[rbt]

I'm sure they would ...

... but I still expect the best prices would be using Presto. Currently I have the annual MDP pass for $117.75 a month with a 1-year minimum. I doubt that this product would be available using just Visa/Mastercard - at least until the entire thing matures. And is it even convenient to a user ... I'll certainly give my metropass to other family members some days ... and even to co-workers just popping out to get something at the office. I'm less likely to give them my credit card - even if I do trust them!

That you wouldn't share your credit/debit card is actually a benefit to the transit agency and a reason for them to encourage use of a standard openpayment card.


Interestingly, CIBC/Rogers released their phone payment app for Blackberries the other day. If your cards are CIBC products and your family member (spouse whom you trust) had a Blackberry, today you would imprint the card onto their device and keep the physical card in your pocket.

http://mobilesyrup.com/2012/11/02/r...to-android-and-windows-phone-8-in-early-2013/

It's expected that all major Canadian banks will have similar app supporting most devices by next fall.

Presto, the non-openpayment version, will be a completely dead technology in 2 years.

 

[nfitz]

That you wouldn't share your credit/debit card is actually a benefit to the transit agency and a reason for them to encourage use of a standard openpayment card.

That's an interesting point. Hmm ...

 

[gweed123]

I can't wait for when NFC is fully adopted, and you can just load a Presto app on your smartphone and tap your phone to pay your fare. The app can be automatically hooked up to your CC or your iTunes account (which is attached to a CC), with the appropriate deductions taking place within the app on your phone.

Would also be an easy way to incorporate distance-based fares into the equation, because the distance calculation can be done within the app on your phone.

EDIT: This would also make it easier for tourists. Tell them to download the iPhone app, when first launched you can either give the app your CC info, or your iTunes account info (which if you have an iPhone, there's a 99% chance you have an iTunes account attached to a CC), and then you're free to use it.

 

[TOareaFan]

I can't wait for when NFC is fully adopted, and you can just load a Presto app on your smartphone and tap your phone to pay your fare. The app can be automatically hooked up to your CC or your iTunes account (which is attached to a CC), with the appropriate deductions taking place within the app on your phone.

Would also be an easy way to incorporate distance-based fares into the equation, because the distance calculation can be done within the app on your phone.

EDIT: This would also make it easier for tourists. Tell them to download the iPhone app, when first launched you can either give the app your CC info, or your iTunes account info (which if you have an iPhone, there's a 99% chance you have an iTunes account attached to a CC), and then you're free to use it.

Interesting that when people talk about NFC and payments the words "iphone" and "itunes" are often used (not just picking on you here...I hear it a lot)...when the reality is that Apple are the only major smartphone producer who does not have NFC chips in the current line up of phones.....it will likely be in the iPhone 5s and the NFC will be the real reason they move away from aluminum cases for their phones and not this bogus "scratching" thing they are putting out there.

I was quite shocked that this upgrade was not part of the iPhone 5 launch as the widespread use of NFC is not that far off and a lot of people locked themselves into 2 and 3 year contracts to get that device and they will be left watching people tapping their phones all over the place within those terms!

 

[nfitz]

I can't wait for when NFC is fully adopted, and you can just load a Presto app on your smartphone and tap your phone to pay your fare.

What happens if your phone crashes and is rebooting when you need to tap on or tap off a vehicle? What if your phone ran out of power during your long GO Bus trip?

A fine idea for the occasional casual user or tourist, but I'd expect most regular users would want to be carrying something with a 100% up time, rather than a 99% up time.

 

[gweed123]

Interesting that when people talk about NFC and payments the words "iphone" and "itunes" are often used (not just picking on you here...I hear it a lot)...when the reality is that Apple are the only major smartphone producer who does not have NFC chips in the current line up of phones.....it will likely be in the iPhone 5s and the NFC will be the real reason they move away from aluminum cases for their phones and not this bogus "scratching" thing they are putting out there.

I was quite shocked that this upgrade was not part of the iPhone 5 launch as the widespread use of NFC is not that far off and a lot of people locked themselves into 2 and 3 year contracts to get that device and they will be left watching people tapping their phones all over the place within those terms!

Yeah, I was hoping for NFC on the iPhone 5 too (I have one). Passbook has definitely laid the groundwork for it. But at this point, transit agencies aren't ready for NFC anyway, so having it at this point is moot for these purposes. In another 3 to 4 years when NFC will be widely used (and fully implemented, as opposed to the quasi implementation in most smartphones now), it would make more sense to implement it then.

I'm on a 2 year upgrade cycle for my phone, so by the time I'm ready for the iPhone 6, NFC should be in a lot more places, so I can actually use it.

What happens if your phone crashes and is rebooting when you need to tap on or tap off a vehicle? What if your phone ran out of power during your long GO Bus trip?

A fine idea for the occasional casual user or tourist, but I'd expect most regular users would want to be carrying something with a 100% up time, rather than a 99% up time.

If it dies before tapping on, find another way to pay your fare (Credit Card for example). If it dies before tapping off, you'd be charged the maximum fare for that route, just like Presto works now with GO when you fail to tap off.

Unfortunate, but next time keep your phone charged . If you had a heavy use day for your phone and it's low when you're about to tap on, maybe pay with something else.

As for my phone crashing, if that happens once every 6 months, that's an unlucky 6 months. The odds of that happening at exactly the moment when you need to tap on or off, well they're really really low.

 

[nfitz]

If it dies before tapping on, find another way to pay your fare (Credit Card for example). If it dies before tapping off, you'd be charged the maximum fare for that route, just like Presto works now with GO when you fail to tap off.

Unfortunate, but next time keep your phone charged . If you had a heavy use day for your phone and it's low when you're about to tap on, maybe pay with something else.

Where's your pass though. Or your monthly cap ... or whatever it is.

As for my phone crashing, if that happens once every 6 months, that's an unlucky 6 months. The odds of that happening at exactly the moment when you need to tap on or off, well they're really really low.

A couple of times in the last 18 months, I've had a crash at the moment I've been trying to check if I should get off and change streetcars. It happens occasionally.

I'm really scratching my head thinking why many regular users would find a phone a better place to have one's monthly pass than a card in the wallet. Very good for tourists, irregular users, that's for sure.

 

[rbt]

What happens if your phone crashes and is rebooting when you need to tap on or tap off a vehicle? What if your phone ran out of power during your long GO Bus trip?

I've got about 30 flights connecting flights (and recently a few train trips) under my belt where this was not a problem.

Showing your phone based ticket to the baggage, customs, security, gate staff, and finally the flight crew for each leg of the trip (international) is much more involved than a bus trip.

If frequent airline travellers can rely on it 20+ hour trips then I think most people will be fine for their short hop around the city.

 

[TOareaFan]

Where's your pass though. Or your monthly cap ... or whatever it is.

A couple of times in the last 18 months, I've had a crash at the moment I've been trying to check if I should get off and change streetcars. It happens occasionally.

I'm really scratching my head thinking why many regular users would find a phone a better place to have one's monthly pass than a card in the wallet. Very good for tourists, irregular users, that's for sure.

To the extent possible, I like to leave my wallet in my desk...the phone is always with me.....perhaps what is evolving is that the phone becomes the one "must carry" element of our lives.

 

[Tuscani01]

For the record,

Using Mastercard or Visa, the charge is $3.00. Using Presto is only $2.50. The convenience of the Mastercard though won out for me when I tried it a few weeks ago. I was going to buy tokens from the collector but the line was massive. A quick tap of my Visa let me in without dealing with lines or having to put money on my card.

 

[nfitz]

I've got about 30 flights connecting flights (and recently a few train trips) under my belt where this was not a problem.

Showing your phone based ticket to the baggage, customs, security, gate staff, and finally the flight crew for each leg of the trip (international) is much more involved than a bus trip.

But in a relatively short period of time, and a relatively infrequent event. Only 30 flights? So if 99% up, you've probably not encountered problem. I do about 70 transit trips a month. Most are 2-legged. Many are 3-legged. A few require tap-off much later. So maybe 125 tapping events a month? That's about 1500 a year. 99% up-time would give you perhaps 15 failures a year. Probably means my up-time is closer to 99.9% the more I think about it.

Point is, you are occasionally going to have failures. Perhaps that's when you just gamble on a lack of POP enforcement ... which I had to do once when I forgot to tap on until the train left the station - and another time with the old tickets where I knew slowing down to try and validate a 10-ride would have resulted in me missing a train.

 

[rbt]

Where's your pass though. Or your monthly cap ... or whatever it is.

Depending on the approach Metrolinx takes, the monthly cap/pass is tied to both pieces of identification (credit/debit/presto card) that the person pre-registers through their website to identify themselves by. They don't actually need to charge you by the item you tap. You could tap a Scotia Debit Card and the system identifies it as being account X which requested to be charged by CIBC Visa.

This is pretty advanced but it is one of the solutions available to Metrolinx for people using multiple cards.

I could see Metrolinx selling a family account where an entire family of 4 can make unlimited trips for $N/month all charged to a single card.


Anyway, if all-door boarding is used enough then you simply board, fix your phone, and tap in later. Still better than waiting for a passenger to dig through their giant purse for their card or a fight with a student over their school ID; or in New York, for a passenger to test the dozen cards they've accumulated.

 

[TOareaFan]

I've got about 30 flights connecting flights (and recently a few train trips) under my belt where this was not a problem.

Showing your phone based ticket to the baggage, customs, security, gate staff, and finally the flight crew for each leg of the trip (international) is much more involved than a bus trip.

If frequent airline travellers can rely on it 20+ hour trips then I think most people will be fine for their short hop around the city.

I think the next step for airlines would/should be photographs of the customer right in the electronic boarding pass.....so, as an example, I am a regular (couple of times a month) user of Porter...am used to just handing over my bberry with the pdf open......I register with Porter for an enhanced service....they take my picutre and (at least for domestic flights) my phone boarding pass becomes all that I have to show at checkin.