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Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

That one sentence says an awful lot about the quality of the Presto implementation.

they are reaping what they sowed....good idea, but they made a mistake when they decided to start from scratch rather than to purchase the rights to an established product and rename it themselves...then again the same goes for many govt infrastructure projects. Just look at the failure of our naval ship procurement
 
they are reaping what they sowed....good idea, but they made a mistake when they decided to start from scratch rather than to purchase the rights to an established product and rename it themselves...then again the same goes for many govt infrastructure projects. Just look at the failure of our naval ship procurement
A valid complaint when we started this thread 10 years ago. But at this point, 10 years in, it's ahead of offerings in other cities, such as Vancouver, Montreal, and London - and the situation in New York isn't moving very fast. TTC appears to have made the right decision to push Presto to improve the product before TTC would come on board.
 
Is there any data out there comparing the per-tap cost of Presto to other cities' products?

Not that I'm aware of. That said, Presto V2 (TTC requirements basically) is very much in line with where London intends to end up in a few years from a technical structure point of view. Quickly adding any new tricks which adhere to the various banking communication standards should be easily implemented by Presto from a technical standpoint. The partnerships with various entities (Apple for example) to deploy those features may take time.

Since there is minimal logic in the card and reader device (V2) there are very few technical limitations that would require issuing everybody a new card to get around.

Presto V1 was an old dog the day it was tendered with very few reusable pieces. It never should have left the starting gate; we could have had V2 on the V1 timeline and a touch cheaper too since Accenture would have fewer in-house things to invent.
 
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they are reaping what they sowed....good idea, but they made a mistake when they decided to start from scratch rather than to purchase the rights to an established product and rename it themselves...then again the same goes for many govt infrastructure projects. Just look at the failure of our naval ship procurement
Any available commercial product wouldn't work for the TTC withing major reworks. They'll need to be modified for TTC's unique transfer system. Some of the available system might not be able to support it either if their type of card can't store enough data. It's not as easy as moving Hong Kong's Octopus or London's Oyster card to the TTC. It will however save the card development fees and is a proven system.
 
Any available commercial product wouldn't work for the TTC withing major reworks. They'll need to be modified for TTC's unique transfer system. Some of the available system might not be able to support it either if their type of card can't store enough data. It's not as easy as moving Hong Kong's Octopus or London's Oyster card to the TTC. It will however save the card development fees and is a proven system.

What is the exact problem with Presto and the TTC system? I could never quite figure out what the exact problem is. I was reading one report from last December that they want Tap On/Off on surface routes and at subway stations, flat fare or variable rate. Something that Presto already has or can do. So what is the problem?
 
What is the exact problem with Presto and the TTC system? I could never quite figure out what the exact problem is. I was reading one report from last December that they want Tap On/Off on surface routes and at subway stations, flat fare or variable rate. Something that Presto already has or can do. So what is the problem?
It's perfectly fine when it comes to taking your money. The problem is we have doubts that the transfers work correctly and there is too much tapping for the end user. TTC's transfer system doesn't work well with Presto or any fare card. People will forget to tap.

Transfers on the card is recently implemented on streetcars. If you read back to the previous page, nfitz was double charged for a valid transfer. That's a problem.
 
I was also double-charged recently for a valid transfer. Tapped on Queen streetcar and was charged; tapped into subway at Osgoode and charged again.
 
What are the transfer policies from a surface to underground route in the other cities? London, HK and others seem to have worked out a policy that doesn't botch their smartcard. Perhaps its
our policies and how its implemented on a WIP software that is to blame
 
In London, if you take a surface route (a bus), an then tap into a tube station, you pay the full tube price; there is no discount because you took a bus before (or after) your tube journey.

Which does simplify transfers on a SmartCard!
 
What are the transfer policies from a surface to underground route in the other cities? London, HK and others seem to have worked out a policy that doesn't botch their smartcard. Perhaps its
our policies and how its implemented on a WIP software that is to blame
There's no transfer in HK. You literary pay for every ride separately. Therefore this was never a problem, just keep charging.

TTC is unique. TTC is designed that buses feed the subway so everyone must take a bus to the subway to get downtown. HK doesn't have such a feeder service but instead bus routes that get to the same places as the subway for cheaper and longer.
 
In London, if you take a surface route (a bus), an then tap into a tube station, you pay the full tube price; there is no discount because you took a bus before (or after) your tube journey.

Which does simplify transfers on a SmartCard!
One of the examples of things I think about every time I read a post along the lines of "why can't TTC be like the transit in "X City"....it really is one of those "careful what you wish for" things.
 
Correct. The London system essentially treats the bus and Tube networks as entirely seperate for fare purposes, with no such thing as a transfer -- by Oyster or otherwise. Since many, many places in London are a long walk from a Tube station, this means a lot of theoretical double fares, though the bus is cheaper at £1.50 a ride, whereas the Tube can run far more.

The only exception to this is if you buy an unlimited travel card -- pricey at £135 a month but easily more economical if you have a lot of mixed-mode journeys.
 

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