Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

[max]

A) don't the machines have a memory to prevent exactly this?
B) who cares how many physical times the card is being used, as long as actual money is flowing through? The credit card companies seem to have figured it out...

A) The machines don't talk to each other, they talk to the cards and will keep state on them while you are in transit. The exception is credit cards, all their transactions are reconciled afterwards.
B) If someone could use the same card on their phone and watch they could hand their phone to one friend, card to another and walk themselves through a subway fare gate on one fare. Also not sure if the fare checkers used by enforcement officers will notify them that they've scanned the same card multiple times when checking a vehicle but if not they could be similarly tricked if one tap registered as a payment on multiple cards.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

A) The machines don't talk to each other, they talk to the cards and will keep state on them while you are in transit. The exception is credit cards, all their transactions are reconciled afterwards.
B) If someone could use the same card on their phone and watch they could hand their phone to one friend, card to another and walk themselves through a subway fare gate on one fare. Also not sure if the fare checkers used by enforcement officers will notify them that they've scanned the same card multiple times when checking a vehicle but if not they could be similarly tricked if one tap registered as a payment on multiple cards.

Makes sense if the goal is to speed up the system - dependent on a central server to validate each and every trip is a recipe for outage and delays.

AoD

 

[T3G]

A) The machines don't talk to each other, they talk to the cards and will keep state on them while you are in transit. The exception is credit cards, all their transactions are reconciled afterwards.
B) If someone could use the same card on their phone and watch they could hand their phone to one friend, card to another and walk themselves through a subway fare gate on one fare. Also not sure if the fare checkers used by enforcement officers will notify them that they've scanned the same card multiple times when checking a vehicle but if not they could be similarly tricked if one tap registered as a payment on multiple cards.

Fair, but couldn't this happen anyway? What's to stop someone from tapping on and then handing their card over the fare gate to a friend? In the old days when transfers were widely used this was a preferred trick of high school students who would throw them out the windows and file on without each person having a legitimate form of fare media.

 

[max]

Fair, but couldn't this happen anyway? What's to stop someone from tapping on and then handing their card over the fare gate to a friend? In the old days when transfers were widely used this was a preferred trick of high school students who would throw them out the windows and file on without each person having a legitimate form of fare media.

Perhaps that wasn't the best example as a row of faregates could probably communicate with each other to block this out, however in that case they could just stagger their entrance until whatever lockout time has passed. According to the 2-hour transit rules it's actually perfectly valid to enter a station more than once, there could be a requirement that you need a tap somewhere else before you can tap at a station again, but given the lack of tap off there might be situation where you'd walk between two places and never have a tap.

There's also the possibility a couple could just share their Presto cards to go to work and home at the same time. Once one of them taps they could both move freely through the system unless there was an algorithm calculating whether it's reasonable that you've tapped where you have based on how long a trip between those two points could take. Restricting the trip to one card means you don't have to deal with all these edge cases.

 

[FC_]

Fair, but couldn't this happen anyway? What's to stop someone from tapping on and then handing their card over the fare gate to a friend? In the old days when transfers were widely used this was a preferred trick of high school students who would throw them out the windows and file on without each person having a legitimate form of fare media.

Tapping the same card twice on GO triggers a tap error. I imagine the TTC fare gates do the same thing within the same station?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Tapping the same card twice on GO triggers a tap error. I imagine the TTC fare gates do the same thing within the same station?

They do.

AoD

 

[max]

Makes sense if the goal is to speed up the system - dependent on a central server to validate each and every trip is a recipe for outage and delays.

AoD

It's actually just a feature of the era in which it was developed. Back then it had to work on buses in areas with spotty cell service. They couldn't rely on those connections so they designed around it.

 

[max]

Tapping the same card twice on GO triggers a tap error. I imagine the TTC fare gates do the same thing within the same station?

They do.

AoD

Hmmm, so admittedly I've never tried visiting a station twice, something I guess I'll plan to do at some point to validate how I think this whole darn system works. However with GO that makes sense as it needs a tap off (don't make me think about pre-set trips) whereas on the TTC you're buying 2 hours on the system, going to the grocery store, bringing that stuff home then heading back out on the same route to hit the bar sounds like an example of perfectly valid after work from home trip for someone.

 

[turbanplanner]

Hmmm, so admittedly I've never tried visiting a station twice, something I guess I'll plan to do at some point to validate how I think this whole darn system works. However with GO that makes sense as it needs a tap off (don't make me think about pre-set trips) whereas on the TTC you're buying 2 hours on the system, going to the grocery store, bringing that stuff home then heading back out on the same route to hit the bar sounds like an example of perfectly valid after work from home trip for someone.

When you get into the game of tapping GO and TTC or vice versa it's fun. I think you can get up to like 7ish hours of travel on $3.70!!!!

TTC + 1:58 Then GO + 2:59 + TTC cost me $3.70
GO then TTC extents the TTC transfers to 3 hours past the first go TAP

I'm wondering what other permutations I should try?

 

[LNahid2000]

When you get into the game of tapping GO and TTC or vice versa it's fun. I think you can get up to like 7ish hours of travel on $3.70!!!!

TTC + 1:58 Then GO + 2:59 + TTC cost me $3.70
GO then TTC extents the TTC transfers to 3 hours past the first go TAP

I'm wondering what other permutations I should try?

5 hours is the max since when you tap onto the TTC after using GO, your transfer expires 3 hours from when you first tapped on GO.

 

[turbanplanner]

5 hours is the max since when you tap onto the TTC after using GO, your transfer expires 3 hours from when you first tapped on GO.

Not how it works in practice from what I remember.

(ignore the default trip refund as I realized I had to reverse the fare and do an over-ride)

I tapped on a TTC bus at ~2:09 pm, tapped on the go at 4:06pm, that go tap said I had 3 hours from 4:06pm. (basically as if I never tapped on the TTC aside from the fare discount)
I tapped on a TTC bus at ~5:04pm, the reader said I had till 7:04pm to do my free TTC transfers.

Had I some how stretched my go ride to 2:59 hours and tapped on the TTC I assume it would have still been the same.

 

[rbt]

When you get into the game of tapping GO and TTC or vice versa it's fun. I think you can get up to like 7ish hours of travel on $3.70!!!!

...

I'm wondering what other permutations I should try?

Don't forget you can continue to travel on TTC after your 2-hour window expires, you just can't tap anywhere. So if you manage to end up entering Finch Station in those final minutes of a valid free tap you can still travel to Spadina station and transfer to a streetcar to your final destination on Queens Quay.

Based on what you've shown, you might get over 8 hours travel.

 

[LNahid2000]

I tapped on a TTC bus at ~2:09 pm, tapped on the go at 4:06pm, that go tap said I had 3 hours from 4:06pm. (basically as if I never tapped on the TTC aside from the fare discount)
I tapped on a TTC bus at ~5:04pm, the reader said I had till 7:04pm to do my free TTC transfers.

...that's 5 hours, and you'd actually have until 7:06pm to use the TTC since your GO transfer becomes your TTC transfer:

 

[T3G]

Don't forget you can continue to travel on TTC after your 2-hour window expires, you just can't tap anywhere.

How does this work from a fare inspection perspective? If you, theoretically, remained on the TTC for 5 hours after your initial tap, how can the fare inspector tell if the tap he sees is legitimate, or if that was only for your first trip of the day and the rest of the time you've been evading your fare? Given how many of these low ranking "officials" love to appoint themselves judge, jury, and executioner, I would not be shocked if the fare inspector declared you to be a fare evader.

 

[rbt]

How does this work from a fare inspection perspective? If you, theoretically, remained on the TTC for 5 hours after your initial tap, how can the fare inspector tell if the tap he sees is legitimate, or if that was only for your first trip of the day and the rest of the time you've been evading your fare? Given how many of these low ranking "officials" love to appoint themselves judge, jury, and executioner, I would not be shocked if the fare inspector declared you to be a fare evader.

"If you are on a vehicle or enter a station with a few minutes remaining on your transfer, you can continue to complete your journey and do not need to tap if the transfer expires while you are on that vehicle. For example, if you tap on a streetcar 1 hour and 55 minutes after your first tap, and you are still on the same streetcar 20 minutes later, your transfer is still valid. When TTC fare inspectors query your PRESTO card, they will be able to see that your transfer is still valid."

Two-hour transfer

www.ttc.ca

EDIT: I rarely use TTC these days so I don't know what would happen in practice, but the published rules seem pretty simple: Tap where you're supposed to tap and if the fare was valid at that time then it counts.