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Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

mpd618 said:
GRT is aiming for integration with Presto cards in the system they go with and potentially open payment. In the Council presentation they referenced the way you can use Presto on STO buses.
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i still don't "get" why one municipality had their provincial funding for a transit funding tied to Presto adoption while another's is not.
 
Bad move by Waterloo Region councillors, IMO. They adopted the "What's best for the GTA isn't best for Waterloo Region!" approach, which isn't necessarily wrong. It's just that true fare integration with the GTA just got dismissed.
 
TFC said:
Bad move by Waterloo Region councillors, IMO. They adopted the "What's best for the GTA isn't best for Waterloo Region!" approach, which isn't necessarily wrong. It's just that true fare integration with the GTA just got dismissed.
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I don't think "what's best for the GTA" played much of a role here, rather than playing a negative role. Fare integration with GO Transit has been a nice-to-have for Waterloo Region, but as a priority it doesn't compare with keeping the LRT project on time and on budget. So far they're doing that and it's on track for a 2017 launch, but it does require the region to have a smart card system in place by then. There's more background in the staff report in this meeting agenda (PDF; see page 40-something). There are quite a number of things they want from an electronic fare system, and Presto doesn't do several of them that the Region considers important. The cost and timing and ability to get agreement on those things are all uncertain, which makes Presto a difficult sell if the Region is doing everything it can to mitigate budget and schedule risk for LRT.
 
Markster said:
KW meanwhile is just quietly investigating the options. A relatively small player in a peripheral market. They are asking for no special deals. They are simply running a standard amount of due diligence.

I fully expect KW to go with Presto. No matter the price difference, the Region has some firm heads on their shoulders and they will understand the benefit of using a system that is fully integrated with the region.
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Whelp, looks like I missed it completely.

I notice, reading the requirements, that inter-operability with the GTA (i.e. Presto) is never assigned a high priority. It is no wonder then, that Presto falls out, as that is far and away the biggest benefit of the system.

Without that, the requirements list ends up being entirely of things that Presto can't currently do.
 
According to the planning committee document (page 47), it looks like the key requirements were:

-Accommodation of cash fare payment and cash fare transfer on GRT buses, Mobility Plus, and ION LRT and aBRT service
-Provision for period passes and pay as you go fare payment
-The ability to incorporate U-Pass programs, co-fare agreements with GO Transit and discount pass programs for low-income residents
-Provision of Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs) for installation on ION platforms that would allow customers to purchase tickets and reload electronic fare media
-Provision of Handheld Card Readers for fare card inspection, and
-Integration of new validating fareboxes into the EFMS

It seems like the Region wanted a single vendor to supply everything including a card-based fare system, coin acceptors on busses, and self-serve terminals at ION stations which issue paper tickets and reload cards. The other agencies in the GTA are using their existing coin machines while basically bolting a presto reader to the side. Fortunately, it looks like the region still wants co-fare integration with GO.
 
If I were the province I'd force all Ontario transit systems to use Presto, like it or not.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
If I were the province I'd force all Ontario transit systems to use Presto, like it or not.
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I partially agree....either force all who want to tap into provincial funding to use it or don't force any. But to say to one municipality (in this case Toronto) you only get the funds if you implement Presto and to let another access provincial funds without the same conditions seems unsupportable.
 
^agreed, it would make things super easy, especially now that Ottawa and Toronto PRESTOs are being made compatible. (they actually weren't before for some reason)
 
MaxT63 said:
According to the planning committee document (page 47), it looks like the key requirements were:

-Accommodation of cash fare payment and cash fare transfer on GRT buses, Mobility Plus, and ION LRT and aBRT service
-Provision for period passes and pay as you go fare payment
-The ability to incorporate U-Pass programs, co-fare agreements with GO Transit and discount pass programs for low-income residents
-Provision of Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs) for installation on ION platforms that would allow customers to purchase tickets and reload electronic fare media
-Provision of Handheld Card Readers for fare card inspection, and
-Integration of new validating fareboxes into the EFMS

It seems like the Region wanted a single vendor to supply everything including a card-based fare system, coin acceptors on busses, and self-serve terminals at ION stations which issue paper tickets and reload cards. The other agencies in the GTA are using their existing coin machines while basically bolting a presto reader to the side. Fortunately, it looks like the region still wants co-fare integration with GO.
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How would the GO integration work?

If there are two cards and two systems (say, Presto and GRT) would both cards have to work on both systems (ie. would they be expecting Presto to modify so that it accepted the GRT card) OR would people in the KW area have to decide if they were or were not going to us GO (so if you were you would just get a Presto card and the new system would read it) OR would everyone have to carry two cards?
 
TOareaFan said:
If there are two cards and two systems (say, Presto and GRT) would both cards have to work on both systems (ie. would they be expecting Presto to modify so that it accepted the GRT card) OR would people in the KW area have to decide if they were or were not going to us GO (so if you were you would just get a Presto card and the new system would read it) OR would everyone have to carry two cards?
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OC Transpo and STO seem to have a similar scenario, with the former using second-generation Presto and the latter using the Multi. According to the STO website, there is integration, but it is not complete: using the e-purse, you can only start the trip using the local agency's card. Is that a technical restriction?
 
A Tory MPP levelled a barrage of criticism at Metrolinx officials Tuesday claiming the Presto smart card system has all the earmarks of the eHealth scandal that rocked the last Liberal government.

Metrolinx board chairman Robert Prichard and Bruce McCuaig, CEO and president, appeared before a legislative committee to answer questions about the government agency charged with developing and implementing an integrated transportation system for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

The cost of introducing the Presto card system across various transit systems, including the Toronto Transit Commission system, has been set at about $700 million.

“You are forcing municipalities . . . to take a technology that is light years behind what is available in the marketplace today and you are continuing to pour multi-millions of dollars into the development of the Presto technology just to catch up,” PC MPP Frank Klees (Newmarket-Aurora) said.

“The problem we have here is this rings very similar to the eHealth issue . . . where the government continued to pour multi-millions of dollars into the development of a technology and it never did appear,” he said, adding that management consulting, technology services firm Accenture is the common denominator.

In 2009 the provincial auditor general released a scathing 50-page report concluding successive Progressive Conservative and Liberal administrations squandered more than $1 billion on electronic health records for patients with little to show for it.

Prichard bristled at this analogy, saying it was “unfair and misleading to the excellent work my colleagues have done with Presto.”

“Presto has 900,000 users. Presto is in effect in all our systems, is working and has done over a half a billion dollars of service, so some notion that this isn’t working is something that’s inconsistent with the facts,” he said.

“There was no off-the-shelf system available to meet the needs that Presto was obliged to meet for the 10 transit systems that make up the GTHA.”

Klees said the fact that Waterloo Region recently turned its back on the Presto system is further proof that it was not current enough to adapt to the region’s transit needs.

The MPP told reporters later the Region of Waterloo “has confirmed” the Presto system is already outdated.

“They are going to an open tender because they want the advance technology, an open payment system that Metrolinx simply can’t deliver. Metrolinx had to resort to coercion and essentially blackmail to force Presto on the TTC. We know that the same thing happened in Ottawa and we know there are problems through the entire Presto system,” he said.

McCuaig later defended the system.

“We believe that Presto is a fully up-to-date, innovative, front of the pack, integrated fare card system. It’s the same kind of system that you would see with the London (England) Oyster card or with the Hong Kong card . . . which will continue to evolve all the time,” he told reporters.
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http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...c_transit_card_system_comes_under_attack.html

Klees really is a dumbass. If he wanted to to critique the system, he would have gone after where the unlocking fee goes, why it will deduct a fare first before updating your balance, why the website is known not to show your updated balance making it easier to believe you have more on your card than is actually there (thus making it easy to find your card locking), why you can't unlock your card online, why the site regularly claims that you cannot buy a monthly pass for your system, why it can take up to 48+ hours for a load to show up, the embarrassingly poor phone system...

No, instead he bases his entire argument over what Kitchiner decided to do. Shame too, because if you do dig deep enough, I bet you could find another e-health/ornge type fiasco in all this.
 
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