Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

[steveintoronto]

Is the $6 to buy a Presto Card the main barrier to entry? Is it the fact that auto-reload is "stressful"? Is it that people may lose their card and have to buy a new one? Is it people don't like loading/managing fares online? Or is it a combination of many reasons why TTC customers don't want to move over to Presto?

Shid like this doesn't help:

I was denied a transfer by Presto twenty minutes after it took a fare and put me into negative one cent, so with a bum knee, had to walk from Lansdowne and Dundas to Dundas West to add $50 to my card (stupid me, I took the shuttle bus along College after getting off the streetcar at Spadina, and the transfer at Lansdowne denied)...* the $50 top-up still doesn't show on the record above, just attained a minute ago*...but they also dinged me a 25c service charge for that one cent.

Just looking at receipt now:
"Overdraft Value: $0.01"
"Overdraft Fee: $0.25"
"New e-Purse Balance: $49.99"

ACCT: MASTERCARD
.........
AMOUNT: $ 50.25

And now I'm damn glad I kept the receipt, as the machines are supposed to show balance real-time on-line (minus latency), and it's been almost 12 hours since the load.

Well guess what? I'll screw them next chance I get. Fare is fair...and some wonder why it's not loved?

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Is the $6 to buy a Presto Card the main barrier to entry? Is it the fact that auto-reload is "stressful"? Is it that people may lose their card and have to buy a new one? Is it people don't like loading/managing fares online? Or is it a combination of many reasons why TTC customers don't want to move over to Presto?

I think there is some ignorance in there too. Every now and then I find pel on the new streetcars that don't know where to pay and they are amazed when I tell them that the machine is only temporary until presto is system-wide.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

And now I'm damn glad I kept the receipt, as the machines are supposed to show balance real-time on-line (minus latency), and it's been almost 12 hours since the load.

They don't show a new load right away as it takes time to process.

 

[Leo_Chan]

I think most of these Presto growing pains for the TTC have been mostly solved if the TTC adopted Presto 3rd (behind Ottawa and GO) rather than last. Adoption would also be great for TTC customers as Presto will be introduced at the TTC "first"; therefore it seems more like a "TTC product" instead of some foreign technology that other transit agencies have and the TTC is just starting to adopt an "old technology".

I also find it funny that THIS says

Not everyone likes the presto card or the European style of presto card it;s too European styled.

The ttc trying to force riders onto presto cards is unfair

Like what is this trying to accomplish? People don't like Presto because it's too European? That is absurd as it is a proven technology of the present (more like the past) and all transit agencies should want an electronic fare payment card instead of tickets and tokens. Why WOULDN'T the TTC want to force users to switch to Presto? Having one fare medium is good from a system perspective as there are less things to maintain/worry about, especially if that fare medium can do so many things the old mediums couldn't.

Also, I do not think auto-reload is stressful. I've just read/heard many peoples' stories on how they feel about Presto and just putting it down here (I use auto-reload).

I think people get confused about the $6 fee to buy a Presto Card. I think that they think that the Presto Card is just like a Metropass, where every month they will have to buy a new Presto Card and load it with money or a TTC Metropass on the Presto Card. PRESTO CARDS ARE NOT MEANT TO BE THROWN AWAY!

The whole Presto problem and adoption rate on the TTC is, IMO, the worst thing to happen to the TTC from a public relations perspective.

/rant

 

[WillTo]

LOL. European?!?!

Even countries in the developing world have stopped using tokens.

 

[Megaton327]

Every now and then I find pel on the new streetcars that don't know where to pay and they are amazed when I tell them that the machine is only temporary until presto is system-wide.

Not sure which machine you're referring to, but neither the presto readers nor the SRVM (single-ride vending machine) are temporary. The SRVM will remain to accept, at the bare minimum, coins. It will no longer accept tokens, and debit/credit may or may not move to the Presto readers as opposed to that machine, and the ticket stamper on the side will be gone, but the SRVMs will stay for cash. They might be modified to dispense disposable paper RFID one-time-use "presto cards", but that would be it.

 

[amnesiajune]

I was denied a transfer by Presto twenty minutes after it took a fare and put me into negative one cent, so with a bum knee, had to walk from Lansdowne and Dundas to Dundas West to add $50 to my card

If you set up autoload, you wouldn't have to worry about this.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Is the $6 to buy a Presto Card the main barrier to entry? Is it the fact that auto-reload is "stressful"? Is it that people may lose their card and have to buy a new one? Is it people don't like loading/managing fares online? Or is it a combination of many reasons why TTC customers don't want to move over to Presto?

The status quo works and people are naturally resistant to change. We're likely not going to see significant Presto usage on TTC until old fare mediums are phased out.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Like what is this trying to accomplish? People don't like Presto because it's too European? That is absurd as it is a proven technology of the present (more like the past) and all transit agencies should want an electronic fare payment card instead of tickets and tokens. Why WOULDN'T the TTC want to force users to switch to Presto? Having one fare medium is good from a system perspective as there are less things to maintain/worry about, especially if that fare medium can do so many things the old mediums couldn't.

I wouldn't call Presto "proven" technology. The system remains incredibly unreliable, compared to the 100% reliability of existing TTC fare medium, and near perfect reliability of credit and debit cards.

Presto won't be ready from prime time on the TTC until it just works. As of now, the system still requires users to have a relatively high degree of technical competence to work around the various bugs and poor UX design in the system. Elements of the Presto system even leave me baffled, and I've spent dozens of hours reading about the system. I wouldn't expect people with low to average levels of technical competency to find the system easy to use.

 

[steveintoronto]

If you set up autoload, you wouldn't have to worry about this.

LOL...If the TTC had their machines wired to the internet, I and many others wouldn't have this problem. I don't WANT autoload for God's sakes. And I shouldn't need to. If the reader alerts a user "funds depleted" then said user can top-up before an incident like that happens. I was already in transit, first transfer went with no hitch, it was when I went to transfer back onto the College car after taking the shuttle bus that I was "denied".

People who 'automatically' have funds taken out of their accounts are the ones who get scammed. But hey, you can always blame the victim, as some do.

Fix the Goddam Machines! (Btw: My Prestocard account still shows me one cent in deficit, that's now almost 24 hours since the incident and the fifty dollar top-up and 25c penalty. Any fixed GO Presto machine updates on-line in almost real-time)

and near perfect reliability of credit and debit cards.

Could you imagine if a bank did business this way? They wouldn't last long.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

LOL...If the TTC had their machines wired to the internet, I and many others wouldn't have this problem. I don't WANT autoload for God's sakes. And I shouldn't need to. If the reader alerts a user "funds depleted" then said user can top-up before an incident like that happens. I was already in transit, first transfer went with no hitch, it was when I went to transfer back onto the College car after taking the shuttle bus that I was "denied".

People who 'automatically' have funds taken out of their accounts are the ones who get scammed. But hey, you can always blame the victim, as some do.

Fix the Goddam Machines! (Btw: My Prestocard account still shows me one cent in deficit, that's now almost 24 hours since the incident and the fifty dollar top-up and 25c penalty. Any fixed GO Presto machine updates on-line in almost real-time)

Could you imagine if a bank did business this way? They wouldn't last long.

Presto: Our loading machines don't work? Oh, and you actually wanted to get home tonight? Too bad.​

Until this, and many other fatal flaws are eliminated, Presto isn't ready for prime time on the TTC.

 

[steveintoronto]

Presto: Our loading machines don't work? Oh, and you actually wanted to get home tonight? Too bad.​

Until this, and many other fatal flaws are eliminated, Presto isn't ready for prime time on the TTC.

In all fairness, I did exaggerate the hobbled walk on my temporarily bum knee to Dundas West. I tried boarding a Dundas car at Sterling, again denied, explained to the driver, and he said "I believe you, had all sorts of problems with the shuttle bus Presto transfers. Try and remember to get a paper transfer". He gave me a ride to the station where I topped up the card.

And here's the latest. Unbelievable. It acknowledges the transactions as I've stated, 24 hours later, but look at the balance:

But there is a silver lining to the cloud! Oh yes....here's how Presto and Associates can *revolutionize* transit use:

We mandate that they take over all car design. Cars will be so fugged up that people will flock to transit in desperation. And then some posters can snivel: "If you set up autoload, you wouldn't have to worry about this."

For a system that makes cash disappear? Now I understand what they mean by a "cashless society". It just vanishes...

Edit to Add: I'm just off to check what balance shows on my card at both Dundas West (TTC) and Bloor (GO) since Presto uses an account ledger unknown to any standard measure in the accounting world. I can somewhat understand printing readouts from the bottom up in terms of chronological events, but once established....*any* ledger, unless specially noted otherwise for each contra-vent, *continues* to display transactions in a consistent manner.

Except for Presto. Gee...that must have been a real ball-breaker for Accenture: "Duh, let's just put transactions in our own way because if we're idiots, so must everyone else be".

What we're witnessing now is the second or more "improvement" in displaying Prestocard transactions.

God help these people if they have to deal with professionals who expect a standard and consistent approach to accounting and readout.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Presto won't be ready from prime time on the TTC until it just works. As of now, the system still requires users to have a relatively high degree of technical competence to work around the various bugs and poor UX design in the system. Elements of the Presto system even leave me baffled, and I've spent dozens of hours reading about the system. I wouldn't expect people with low to average levels of technical competency to find the system easy to use.

I'm not really sure why having an understanding of technology is needed for using Preto unless you want to register it online to keep track of things. If using a website is beyond your level of technology then you should maybe consult with your closet know teenager to help you out with it, which is what older people tend to do when they have trouble with technology anyway. I think a lot of people are just overthinking everything to do with Presto becuse it's new. It has problems on the TTC becuse it's being used as it's being insatlled, no ttrasit stem has ever done that to the extent that the TTC is.

 

[amnesiajune]

The system remains incredibly unreliable, compared to the 100% reliability of existing TTC fare medium, and near perfect reliability of credit and debit cards.

Tokens and metropasses have their flaws. Automatic entrances swallow tokens and block out metropasses once in a while (if the turnstile wasn't fully turned by the last person to use it), and people lose tokens and metropasses with no theft protection (unlike Presto). "100% reliability" is a joke. Presto also has 100% reliability if you ignore everything that can make it fail.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I'm not really sure why having an understanding of technology is needed for using Preto unless you want to register it online to keep track of things.

Go read my post from last week again: #6722

If it's not entirely clear to you, due to the poor UX design, that ordeal required the end user to troubleshoot errors in Presto's self-loading machines, otherwise they'd be unable to reload and stranded. Hence why I say Presto still requires a degree of technical competence for users to be able to use it reliably.