Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

[Jonny5]

This is a TTC problem. Go Transit rolled out Presto with very few problems, and YRT was a bit behind schedule with their rollout but I've never seen a broken Presto reader on a YRT or GO bus. I've never seen a broken reader at a subway station or on the new streetcars either. This seems like it's purely a bus & old streetcar problem.

The presto roll out on GO was a whole different situation, and it was also riddled with problems.

Accenture was so far behind, and the design requirements were changing so frequently, the head of the project was fired (that's huge in a government job). The guy who took it over basically decided to push forward and launch the most bare bones system possible for the simple ability to say "we did something" (and thus collect pay-cheques with bonuses).

The original presto for GO (remember when balance checkers were gray, not yellow?) had bizarre functionality restrictions that were clearly put in place by people who did not ever ride the system. A fare paid without a pre-booked destination expired after 90 minutes, locking your card. You had to see a customer service agent in person to fix it. Too bad if your station closed early: your card was now useless. You will note that there are many trips on GO that take longer than 90 minutes, not including delays.

It was so bad GO had to hard change off paper passes to get people to adopt it because of the horror stories from the launch kept uptake to almost nothing.

As for the TTC, I have seen plenty of readers at Union that are red and offline. I also don't see how "new vs. old" streetcars could be the problem related to the readers. That's bizarre.

 

[drum118]

While the province is going gaga on Presto, other providers have moved on:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/16...uters-get-access-to-apple-pay-in-mta-etix-app

And of course, we know GO brilliantly removed their own app from service. Adopting technology from 2 decades ago and passing it off as cutting edge progress while charging local agencies an arm and a leg for it and couldn't even manage to handle punctuation on the user website is just so hot.



I use MT (oops, sorry Miway) - and it happens enough to be normal but not enough to be an annoyance.

AoD

MT does have a lot of issues on the buses to the point riders are getting free rides at times.

This week alone, used my card on the first bus and not working; Transfer to the 2nd route and work; transfer to the 3rd route not working. Drivers telling riders the reader is not work and the ride was free.

Was on another route this week also, where the reader only work at various time along the route.

Even Burlington has issues at times.

Hell, the old Burlington system was better than this crappy system.

These Ontario projects develop to be sold to other places have ended up being failures and costing taxpayer millions.

 

[steveintoronto]

Perhaps GO will pull a bus out of service with a bad reader right away, when the TTC won't?

I've been on route 29 buses with them not working. The driver had to keep rebooting one, he started to get upset, then said "screw it, I'm here to drive, not service some &(*%#+ system" and everyone who needed to tap on with Presto got a free ride. It was intermittent connections. I'm a tech, but would have to see a schematic to see how they run these. As a designer, the very first thing I'd include, besides filtering the power and adding lots of spare capacitance (to last beyond interruptions) is consider a stand-alone battery backup, isolated from the bus battery by a diode, so it can't back-flow into the bus systems. Those units get warm, so they must draw a fair amount of current, and the back-up battery could only last a couple of hours, but enough to get a new unit or replacement bus out for the end of route.

There may be a reason they don't do that...but they seem to do a lot of odd things...

I've now seen a total of three buses where the driver has candidly admitted the machine isn't working.

 

[nfitz]

As previously warned. I wonder what makes them so special that they needed a 4 day turnaround time.

It's the complete rebuild and revamp of the Presto site they've been talking about for a couple of years.

I thought they'd already done the upgrade -- I didn't remember the dates.

That was an update of the back office software and software on the devices. This is the new website.

 

[steveintoronto]

It's the complete rebuild and revamp of the Presto site they've been talking about for a couple of years

In my ongoing communications with Presto on some bugs, they sent me screenshots of the card transactions, considerably more intuitive and easy to follow than the display used on-line until now. I wonder if they are going to move to a new display?

One (ostensibly) being replaced was a nightmare to follow, you could do a couple of lines, but then the tedium of having to carry in your memory what should be displayed each line, like standard book-keeping/accounting practice quickly became so tedious it made following your transactions and explaining the problem to Presto next to impossible, not to mention the display would time-out before being able to talk to someone at Presto. You could refresh it at the end of a session, but only by doing a re-send. Grrrrr....

I ended up just copy and pasting the page rendering into a text page to keep it up, and be able to mark the details for my conversation with them.

Fingers crossed that will be addressed.

 

[MafaldaBoy]

The new website is up now, with the refreshed new design; looks very nice, and appears they made some improvements since the consultation more than a year ago (Feb 2015!).

 

[dodoburd]

The new website is up now, with the refreshed new design; looks very nice, and appears they made some improvements since the consultation more than a year ago (Feb 2015!).

There's a mobile site now!

 

[JamesKoole]

A quick spin through the new site and...I'm impressed. The previous version was a bit of a mess, hiding basic info like your last few trips behind two or three clicks. The new one seems to have been well thought out.

Card balance, front and centre, nice and big. The last five or so transactions are there too with an easy way to get more if you want.

Mobile is just as good with everything working as you would expect. Only gripe is the usage table is not well spaced on a smartphone unless you turn it to landscape. Other than that, it's a huge improvement over the old site.

 

[crs1026]

I'm impressed too. Addressed the things that I had found inconvenient, and much more direct presentation.

I'm sure we will find things to gripe about (it's UT, after all) but overall they did a great job.

- Paul

 

[DSC]

Yes, it's certainly better but it is still odd to me that if you get a free transfer the balance column reads $0.

 

[steveintoronto]

Looks far better, loads far faster, but there's a huge shortcoming for someone like myself who makes random trips to random destinations: It shows only the start of the fare, not the finish.

I had to do a lot of headscratching to figure out they still have a massive glitch with taking the UPX *even when tapping on and off on the GO Presto machines*...it charges that as a UPX fare, contrary to claims and my chronic communications with Customer Service on exactly this matter. It does not calculate it from beginning of the trip to the end. It calculates the UPX portion as a separate trip, and does not apply a concession, it charges full price.

I guess my continual diatribe with them will continue. They now owe me a good sum of money.

Kudos to the team that got the web presentation far better (although still lacking in the bog-obvious of any far, detailing the destination), but boos to Presto for still not getting the UPX via GO fare correct.

Looks like I'm back to tapping on at beginning of trip, tapping off at end of rail journey, not any transfers in between to get the right fare again. This is now beyond absurd.

 

[steveintoronto]

Yes, it's certainly better but it is still odd to me that if you get a free transfer the balance column reads $0.

That is consistent with "fare check" on UPX, or ostensibly, a fare inspector checking your card. It may appear odd, but I can see a purpose for that later in the software being able to be programmed to 'top-up' your fare by paying for a transfer if your two hour window times out. Many US systems have done that for years, and continue to do so, especially in California and the SW.

I'm just completely boggled that they haven't included indicating the destination. (final tap-off point)

Edit to Add:

Uh oh....now the details on the display are different in the time it took to write the above, and having to refresh the display.

The 'last five transactions' now displays those UPX fares mentioned above as 'GO fares' (just minutes ago, it displayed them as "UPX")....but I'm *still* being charged full price, with no concession applied.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

My TTC/Presto map has been updated. a few more subway stations are now scheduled for new fare gates (upcoming; yellow), and one has been finished (Keele).

 

[steveintoronto]

Called Presto Card about their lack of indicating for where the tap-off point is that they are charging for. It makes it next to impossible to know what segment they are charging for, and the figures displayed are, in many cases, completely nonsensical. Sometimes the balance goes up instead of down, and no indication of why.

I'm also sometimes charged full fare from Union to Bloor on UPX, other times, the concession is applied.

The automatic answer menu announced a twenty minute wait to talk to a service rep. Why am I not surprised?

 

[yyztvguy]

Called Presto Card about their lack of indicating for where the tap-off point is that they are charging for. It makes it next to impossible to know what segment they are charging for, and the figures displayed are, in many cases, completely nonsensical. Sometimes the balance goes up instead of down, and no indication of why.

I'm also sometimes charged full fare from Union to Bloor on UPX, other times, the concession is applied.

The automatic answer menu announced a twenty minute wait to talk to a service rep. Why am I not surprised?

make sure you tell them to transfer you to take the post-call survey. I remember they made a big deal a while back about how good their satisfaction numbers were. I had a brutal time with them - and asked them to make sure I got transferred through to the caller survey at the end of the call. They transferred me back to another rep. - and I had to go through the whole conversation again before they would transfer me to the automated survey. They need real metrics to show Sr. Staff how brutal their Customer Service is.