Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

[ksun]

^^And your post is highlights exactly my main gripe with farecard systems. It allows the agency to design confusing fare systems that'll end costing the rider more, and will likely push people back to driving. Using transit shouldbe hassle free and simple.

Creating a distance based, upcharge based on whatever mode you tap onto, which station you get off, sounds great on a transit message board, but in reality it just makes transit riding expensive and confusing to use.

really? Why would farezone be complicated and confusing?? Riders don't need to know all the details, right? What they need to do is just to scan or swipe the card. It is no more complicated than a single fare system.

Unless you think it is hard for them to figure out how much to pay? Well, plenty of cities are doing that in the world and I am sure Torontonians are intelligent enough to read a table which outlines the farezone. London has it, vancouver has it. How is that complicated? There is no hassle associated with distance based fare for the rider whatsoever.

Back in the days, Toronto did have a farezone system with 3 zones:
http://transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/maps/guide1954f.gif

If you are concerned about costs -- it is one way or another, all from riders pockets. How would implementating fare zones make transit riding more expensive? If anything, it will be more fair to riders. I don't buy this "if you make long distance rider pay more, they will choose to drive". Nope, no matter how you put it ($5?), taking transit will still be cheaper than driving (+parking). It won't affect the incentive for people to take transit whatsoever. Drivers will still drive.

With all the extension to Vaughan, and Richmond Hill, I don't think a single fare system should be kept. Ask yourself, should someone from Vaughan Centre pay exactly the same fare to travel to Yonge/King as someone from Wellesley station? And I really don't think it is too much to ask the former to spend $5 to get downtown Toronto, from a different city.

 

[salsa]

If you are concerned about costs -- it is one way or another, all from riders pockets. How would implementating fare zones make transit riding more expensive? If anything, it will be more fair to riders. I don't buy this "if you make long distance rider pay more, they will choose to drive". Nope, no matter how you put it ($5?), taking transit will still be cheaper than driving (+parking). It won't affect the incentive for people to take transit whatsoever. Drivers will still drive.

With all the extension to Vaughan, and Richmond Hill, I don't think a single fare system should be kept. Ask yourself, should someone from Vaughan Centre pay exactly the same fare to travel to Yonge/King as someone from Wellesley station? And I really don't think it is too much to ask the former to spend $5 to get downtown Toronto, from a different city.

Transit will always be cheaper than driving, but there are many people who can barely afford the TTC as is. When my family moved here in the early 90s, the fares were around $1.75 but we had no money at the time. Everyday my parents would walk to work for over an hour rain or shine, starting from our apartment on Broadview, across the Bloor Viaduct, and then on University Ave. Today the fares are one of the most expensive in North America, and implementing distance based fares will only make it worse for some people. Perhaps Vaughan should pay more since it's a different city but I don't think this will sit well with low income people in Scarborough for example, and it will only worsted the urban vs suburban resentment.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The TTC has taken the next step to get PRESTO on their system. From their website at this link:

[h=2]The 2014 TTC Senior/Student and Child tickets are twice as large as older versions[/h]

The bigger ticket is designed for our new streetcars. Each streetcar will have two ticket validator machines when they begin service later this year.


Eventually, tickets and tokens will be eliminated as the TTC moves entirely to the PRESTO farecard or cash to pay your fare.


Information about how to use the ticket validator will be provided as we get closer to the new streetcars entering service.


What do I do with my old 2013 Senior/Student tickets?

 

[nfitz]

The TTC has taken the next step to get PRESTO on their system.

Ah, I wondered how they'd validate those existing small tickets. I'd better use up all my child ones, before an operator claims they are not valid, despite not expiring unlike the student/senior ones.

Sigh ... wonderful ... not only do I have to carry a lot more paper in my wallet ... I'm also carrying a child's Presto card that I can't even use on TTC, because TTC still has the child's rate set to $2.70.

 

[Electrify]

Just found out that YRT will be discontinuing paper tickets and passes in favour of Presto this July. I don't know when it was signed or how long their contract with the TTC to provide service north of Steeles is, but someone should have had the foresight that using Presto enabled buses should have been a requirement to continue the partnership. The previous (and to an extent, the current one as well) administration's choice to delay Presto could end up costing them several million in lost revenue.

Who am I kidding? YRT will just continue business as usual, though to get tickets and passes to work on the TTC buses will be difficult to obtain. Thus ridership will drop, thus they will use it as an excuse to go for the world record of world's most expensive transit fares ($4 single zone cash fare already).

 

[epcjay]

Just found out that YRT will be discontinuing paper tickets and passes in favour of Presto this July. I don't know when it was signed or how long their contract with the TTC to provide service north of Steeles is, but someone should have had the foresight that using Presto enabled buses should have been a requirement to continue the partnership. The previous (and to an extent, the current one as well) administration's choice to delay Presto could end up costing them several million in lost revenue.

Who am I kidding? YRT will just continue business as usual, though to get tickets and passes to work on the TTC buses will be difficult to obtain. Thus ridership will drop, thus they will use it as an excuse to go for the world record of world's most expensive transit fares ($4 single zone cash fare already).

Or maybe they will allow YRT users to supplement using a TTC ticket or token. That would be a deal for the YRT rider! lol

 

[rm20010]

Or maybe they will allow YRT users to supplement using a TTC ticket or token. That would be a deal for the YRT rider! lol

If you're sneaky enough, you can get away with that for some southbound TTC buses on Warden, McCowan, etc. Sometimes the drivers don't care you paid two TTC fares and not the extra 35 cents (last year, now 60).

The easiest temporary solution for handling transfers would be to let the Presto machines print out paper transfers - those paper transfers you get on YRT buses when using tickets, why can't they do the same for Presto cards? Though that doesn't answer what people using just TTC-contracted buses will do if the driver is being strict about fares.

 

[BMO]

I currently pay for my Tim's coffee using my Blackberry 10 device. I just register my Tim's card in the app and then at the stores I just tap my phone and it deducts the charge from my tim's card. I really don't understand how this can be so difficult to implement for a $125B institution like the Ontario Government. It seems like such a convoluted way of implementing it. I understand some difference that exist, such as readers on buses and streetcars are not constantly connected to the system so it's hard to do some of the money processing that requires an internet connection, but I'm very surprised at how long the implementation of this system has taken. I look forward to finally being able to use my Presto everywhere in Toronto and the GTA.

 

[salsa]

Washington Metro subway buys Presto system

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tra...shington_metro_subway_buys_presto_system.html

 

[W. K. Lis]

Washington Metro subway buys Presto system

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tra...shington_metro_subway_buys_presto_system.html

It'll take a while before the transaction shows up on their system.

 

[k10ery]

It'll take a while before the transaction shows up on their system.

Nice burn, WK!

 

[TOareaFan]

So, I guess, Accenture built this system using Ontario taxpayer money (they weren't in this business before, were they?) and did not give back any rights to share in future income from sales of the technology to other transit agencies?

Am I reading that right?

EDIT: answer is I was reading it wrong:

Presto is based on a fare system that Accenture developed before it was awarded the 10-year Ontario government contract in 2006, they stressed.

“The fact is that we’ve been in the ticketing business for 10 to 15 years,” said Cuddihey, citing airline, railway and transit payments as part of what the company calls the Accenture Fare Management Solution.

“The (Ontario) procurement required the bidders have a solution that had been implemented elsewhere,” he said.

Metrolinx also denied that Accenture was profiting from technology that was paid for by Ontario taxpayers.

“Metrolinx owns the intellectual property (IP) for the domestic Canadian marketplace, and Accenture acquired the IP for the international marketplace. In exchange for this, Metrolinx received a multi-million-dollar payment, as well as receiving the benefit of future enhancements to the system at no cost,” said an email from Metrolinx spokeswoman Ann Marie Aikins.

 

[BMO]

So, I guess, Accenture built this system using Ontario taxpayer money (they weren't in this business before, were they?) and did not give back any rights to share in future income from sales of the technology to other transit agencies?

Am I reading that right?

The government of Ontario holds the rights to the use of the system in Canada. Accenture owns the rights to the technology in the resto of the world. This was in exchange for supposedly free upgrades that Accenture would implement to the system as it evolved. If another system in Canada were to use Presto, Ontario would get compensation for using it. I believe there's some other advantages placed in the deal that would benefit Ontario if a certain amount of revenue is generated around the globe for Accenture. Overal, though, the system Ontario is implementing has a much larger scope and more complicated/ dynamic requirements to fit with each transit agencie's specific needs while allowing for one unified system. There's no doubt though that this technology was developed basically using the Ontario government's money.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

I currently pay for my Tim's coffee using my Blackberry 10 device. I just register my Tim's card in the app and then at the stores I just tap my phone and it deducts the charge from my tim's card. I really don't understand how this can be so difficult to implement for a $125B institution like the Ontario Government. It seems like such a convoluted way of implementing it. I understand some difference that exist, such as readers on buses and streetcars are not constantly connected to the system so it's hard to do some of the money processing that requires an internet connection, but I'm very surprised at how long the implementation of this system has taken. I look forward to finally being able to use my Presto everywhere in Toronto and the GTA.

I raised this issue like two years ago. With most phones coming with some sort of NFC capability, how hard can it be to write an app for a smartphone which would allow as simple as, reading card balance/transaction history/reloading balance all the way to as complex as using the phone as the payment media.

 

[BMO]

I raised this issue like two years ago. With most phones coming with some sort of NFC capability, how hard can it be to write an app for a smartphone which would allow as simple as, reading card balance/transaction history/reloading balance all the way to as complex as using the phone as the payment media.

Exactly. The majority of new phones coming out, except the iPhone, have NFC, which is starting to be used by Banks across canada for mobile payments. I find it so odd, because we actually have all the infrastructure already in place. Most merchant terminals already come with the ability to just tap your card on it. So the issue, I'm sure, comes from the need to implement certain security standards and encryptions for these mobile apps. Still, though, a mobile app just needs to interact with the terminals at the subway stations and buses, etc. They already have the back-end in place (the network that handles payments, etc). Apparently PRESTO in Ottawa is already ready to accept mobile payments from what I've heard, and when TTC finally starts rolling it out, we will too, in Toronto. If people could just download a free PRESTO app where they could register and login to their account as well as check their balance, top-up and pay for using transit, wouldn't that bee a much easier way to get into the hands of users and increase the rate of adoption for PRESTO? It just seems like a straightforward evolution IMO.

I'm curious if anyone has heard anything about this.

Edit: I know this is planned for the PRESTO next generation