Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

[nfitz]

Well, if they charge me a 0.25 overdraft fee and every other lazy sloth like me then ill bet their collecting a tidy sum in overdraft fees. Its not like I wanted an 'overdraft' if there is less than the fare left on my card then it should decline my entry at the gate period and not go into 'overdraft' like im some taxpayer funded transportation welfare recipient.

Charging you an extra 25¢ rather than forcing you to pay cash and pay an extra 35¢ is a scam?

A tidy sum? If anything, it would only cover the money they lose letting people ride for free, as some will never refill their card again.

That could be enough to matter to the transfer table.

As noted above, there is to be no transfer table.

 

[TOareaFan]

Okay TOareaFan ill be more careful with the exact words I use so as not to raise your objection, but my point was is that having any 'fee' (regardless of it being stated in the fine print of the user agreement) other than the fee for service 'the fare', is going beyond the mandate or purpose of the Presto system. A $0 balance should be a $0 balance and Metrolinx has no business extending credit to lazy people like me that cant be bothered to check or know how low their balance is.

Then they ought to make it a heck of alot easier to quickly check balances then having to find a kiosk to check it at or go 'online' on whatever website they have. I seldom use the TTC or GO as I walk/cycle everywhere. I prefer to load $50 on my presto card and then forget about it until it stops working.

When the words used are things like "scam" then choosing which words to use (and when) carefully is a very good idea.

The $0.25 is not in "the fine print" it is prominently placed in the body of the agreement in the same size print as the rest of the agreement.

 

[Mercator]

Charging you an extra 25¢ rather than forcing you to pay cash and pay an extra 35¢ is a scam?

A tidy sum? If anything, it would only cover the money they lose letting people ride for free, as some will never refill their card again.

You're right nfitz, the sum they collect from my overdraft probably wont cover the amount of people that would overdraft and throw out their card. So why do overdraft at all. Why not have it as $0 mean $0 or if I have $2.50 on my card it denies my entry at the gate. Thereby the people that are going to refill their cards do, and those that pay a cash fare and throw out their card leave it with skin in game.

What is the purpose or cost rationale for having the overdraft system on a Presto card? Im not sure it's warranted.

 

[MetroMan]

Indeed--if you "don't need a ride tomorrow" and need the balance now, you can either use autoload or the self-serve reload kiosks now in many subway stations and, I believe, planned to be in all of them. Also, frankly, it's 24 hours, not 3 years--it's not that hard to plan your travels a day in ahead and load early.

That would be great if there were subway stations with PRESTO kiosks all over the city. The point is, if for some reason your card didn't auto-reload (mine finally did, the next day) then you're stranded because you can't even go online to reload your card since it'll only update in 24 hours.

 

[TOareaFan]

You're right nfitz, the sum they collect from my overdraft probably wont cover the amount of people that would overdraft and throw out their card. So why do overdraft at all. Why not have it as $0 mean $0 or if I have $2.50 on my card it denies my entry at the gate. Thereby the people that are going to refill their cards do, and those that pay a cash fare and throw out their card leave it with skin in game.

What is the purpose or cost rationale for having the overdraft system on a Presto card? Im not sure it's warranted.

Because people can get stranded. If I, say, start my journey with $3 on my card....tap onto a Zum bust to York University I am down to $0.20 and then when I tap on to the TTC to continue on I am in overdraft and likely a fair distance from anywhere I can fix that.

 

[Mercator]

When the words used are things like "scam" then choosing which words to use (and when) carefully is a very good idea.

The $0.25 is not in "the fine print" it is prominently placed in the body of the agreement in the same size print as the rest of the agreement.

Thanks, I thought Urban Toronto, and its senior members, were interested in attracting traffic from all segments for discussions on this forum, but perhaps it's for the exclusive use of those more educated and careful with every word than I.

You mean the printed in the agreement that 99% of users dont read.

 

[nfitz]

You're right nfitz, the sum they collect from my overdraft probably wont cover the amount of people that would overdraft and throw out their card. So why do overdraft at all. Why not have it as $0 mean $0 or if I have $2.50 on my card it denies my entry at the gate. Thereby the people that are going to refill their cards do, and those that pay a cash fare and throw out their card leave it with skin in game.

What is the purpose or cost rationale for having the overdraft system on a Presto card? Im not sure it's warranted.

Do you not recall the complaints when they first started Presto, with people saying they'd been stuck in the middle of nowhere, not being able to get on a bus, because they card had gone to 0?

They changed Presto so that it could go negative, to accommodate these complaints.

Most boarding locations, even on TTC, have no opportunities to reload your card - and this gets far worse, once you get to the 905 communities that have been on Presto for over 5 years already.

I can see why one might object to $5 penalty ... but it's only 2 bits.

 

[TOareaFan]

Thanks, I thought Urban Toronto, and its senior members, were interested in attracting traffic from all segments for discussions on this forum, but perhaps it's for the exclusive use of those more educated and careful with every word than I.

discussion with everyone is welcome....but do expect to get challenged when you accuse people wrongly of a "scam".....I don't see the relationship between "education" and being "careful" with words. If you do (as most people do) know what "scam" is...you should know that it does not apply here at all and should be careful not to wrongly accuse people of scamming.

You mean the printed in the agreement that 99% of users dont read.

Hardly their fault if you, or others, did not read the agreement.....but maybe you could suggest another way to alert the people of the policy that would rather charge a small fee than strand people mid-journey?

 

[Mercator]

Do you not recall the complaints when they first started Presto, with people saying they'd been stuck in the middle of nowhere, not being able to get on a bus, because they card had gone to 0?

They changed Presto so that it could go negative, to accommodate these complaints.

Thank nfitz, No I wasn't aware. While i've seen bus driver on GO accept cash to load money onto the cards I hadn't considered the other bus systems. I suppose the municipal bus drivers wouldnt have time to load cash fares. In all honesty, I cant recall the last time I was on a municipal bus.

 

[Mercator]

So if that is indeed the case - that you can get stranded "in the middle of nowhere" - then I suppose their rationale for the overdraft system is to reduce their liability should someone freeze to death stranded in said "middle of nowhere".

However, while having overdraft may mitigate the frequency or possibility of that occurring it doesn't totally prevent it.

 

[LNahid2000]

From my experience, the overdraft function doesn't even work properly on GO if you don't have at least the base fare available on your card. I once ran into a situation where I got stranded with Presto even though I did have the amount required for a fare on my card due to the way Presto works.

I had $10 on my card and was travelling from Union Station to Trinity Common in Brampton. The GO fare calculator showed a fare of $7.20 so I figured I'd be fine. I tapped on at Union and the $5.30 base fare was taken off of my card. I tapped off at Bramalea GO to transfer to the 32 bus and an additional $1.90 was taken off my card. At this point I had $2.80 left on my card and when I tapped on the GO bus, it wanted to take an additional $5.30 off my card and I was denied. In the end I would've been credited that $5.30 back when I tapped off, but because I didn't have the base fare on my card at the time, the transaction didn't go through. I had to argue with the driver to get on the bus and only figured this out after I complained to Metrolinx.

 

[Jonny5]

From my experience, the overdraft function doesn't even work properly on GO if you don't have at least the base fare available on your card. I once ran into a situation where I got stranded with Presto even though I did have the amount required for a fare on my card due to the way Presto works.

I had $10 on my card and was travelling from Union Station to Trinity Common in Brampton. The GO fare calculator showed a fare of $7.20 so I figured I'd be fine. I tapped on at Union and the $5.30 base fare was taken off of my card. I tapped off at Bramalea GO to transfer to the 32 bus and an additional $1.90 was taken off my card. At this point I had $2.80 left on my card and when I tapped on the GO bus, it wanted to take an additional $5.30 off my card and I was denied. In the end I would've been credited that $5.30 back when I tapped off, but because I didn't have the base fare on my card at the time, the transaction didn't go through. I had to argue with the driver to get on the bus and only figured this out after I complained to Metrolinx.

Right. I have come across that a few times before without thinking through in advance that my transfer to a GO bus required the minimum fare of $5.30 on the card. Every time the driver has quickly waived me on to sit down, seemingly as though he has experienced the issue several times a day and knows I wouldn't actually be paying a fare in the end anyway.

 

[johntauren]

I had no sooner commented on how Presto is not location-accurate, than this happened to me yet again.

This trip was GO Train > MiWay > Zum, GO Mimico to Brampton downtown. Presto says I transferred from Miway to Zum at Courtney Park. I didn't - I transferred a mile further north. It doesn't matter out there, but on TTC the gap in distance could be equivalent to the unit thinking it's at Queen Street when it's at Bloor. That could be enough to matter to the transfer table.

I've got a trip from last month from Union Station to Bramalea GO Station and then a recorded transfer to Brampton Transit at Vodden and Kennedy 10 minutes later, which is impossible.
That is 5km apart!

 

[Catenary]

This is very practical. TTC already has all vehicles sending location pings to central office every 20 to 30 seconds; that is, they have a mobile network in place.

Just send a packet shortly after the tap-in (queue when network is unavailable due to tunnels or unknown issues).

This is what Ottawa does, as their readers are wired to the network already in the vehicle. The backend only updates and pushes a new update every 4 hours though, and the buses don't always connect, so OC Transpo claims the readers update 4x a day.

 

[BMO]

This is very practical. TTC already has all vehicles sending location pings to central office every 20 to 30 seconds; that is, they have a mobile network in place.

Just send a packet shortly after the tap-in (queue when network is unavailable due to tunnels or unknown issues).

Issue is, say one streetcar sends a packet, but then you have hundreds of buses and streetcars sending and downloading packets for the updated list and soon enough you find that the data requirements start to overload the processing and bandwidth that they'd ideally like to run these on (I assume based on an educated guess).