News   Dec 04, 2025
Parliament Slip Construction Continues As New Community Centre, Extended Water's Edge Promenade Open
 679     1 
News   Dec 04, 2025
Proposed Tower in Fairbank PMTSA Leaps From 15 to 42 Storeys
 1K     2 
News   Dec 04, 2025
Industry Updates: Brampton Transit Pilot, GTA Market Trends, and Community-Focused Initiatives
 630     0 

Ontario Northland/Northern Ontario Transportation

micheal_can said:
The advantage of a provincial contactless transit card would mean that if the desire to bring one in for those places, there is not the upfront costs to design the system. The equipment already exists.The training already exists. So, there is a minimal cost to implementation.
Click to expand...
I suppose if a transit system wants to buy into Presto, like Ottawa, there is nothing stopping them, but most transit agencies, except possibly the very smallest, likely already have some form of 'ePass', tap card, etc. that suits their local needs (I checked a few of the larger ones and they all did). They each have different fare rates and discount rules. I fail to see an advantage for an isolated transit agency to dump what they have and buy into a provincial system that would probably be less responsive to their needs.

Per the Business Case, Gormley and Langstaff will be 1005 and 1020 s/b respectively arriving Union at 1055 and departing Union at 1830, stopping at 1905 and 1920 n/b.
 
lenaitch said:
I suppose if a transit system wants to buy into Presto, like Ottawa, there is nothing stopping them, but most transit agencies, except possibly the very smallest, likely already have some form of 'ePass', tap card, etc. that suits their local needs (I checked a few of the larger ones and they all did). They each have different fare rates and discount rules. I fail to see an advantage for an isolated transit agency to dump what they have and buy into a provincial system that would probably be less responsive to their needs.

Per the Business Case, Gormley and Langstaff will be 1005 and 1020 s/b respectively arriving Union at 1055 and departing Union at 1830, stopping at 1905 and 1920 n/b.
Click to expand...

northbay.ca

Transit Fares & Passes | City of North Bay

Cash fares and bus pass prices.
northbay.ca northbay.ca
This is North Bay Transit's passes. No contactless payment.

Fares and Passes

www.greatersudbury.ca www.greatersudbury.ca
This is Sudbury's GOVA transit service's passes. No contactless payment.

Please find me one transit agency that is in Northern ON, or even Central ON that does have a contactless system for payment. Reality is, many of these places cannot afford that upfront cost to create their own.

dowlingm said:
Pretty good for a Jays matinee given that GO doesn’t operate RH service on weekends.
Click to expand...
Still not overloading the train enough to really worry about it.
 
lenaitch said:
I suppose if a transit system wants to buy into Presto, like Ottawa, there is nothing stopping them, but most transit agencies,
Click to expand...

Getting off topic, but OC Transpo didn't "want" to buy into Presto, they were coerced into it by the province. Basically they were told that if they wanted money to buy new buses, they needed to roll out Presto. For Ottawa, it would have make far more sense to use STO's Multi Card but Toronto vetoed that. With OC Transpo now taking contactless payment on all buses now, Presto is becoming irrelevant.
 
Last edited:
roger1818 said:
Getting off topic, but OC Transpo didn't "want" to buy into Presto, they were coerced into it by the province. Basically they were told that if they wanted money to buy new buses, they needed to roll out Presto. For Ottawa, it would have make far more sense to use STO's Multi Card but Toronto vetoed that. With OC Transpo now taking contactless payment on all buses now, Presto is becoming irrelevant.
Click to expand...
Thank you for that slightly of topic post. It is relevant. So, should we skip the Presto implementation and just have payment by Debit/credit tap? That may solve many issues. Only real issue is if someone only has cash. Do we allow the train crew to take the cash as payment when the person boards?
 
micheal_can said:
Thank you for that slightly of topic post. It is relevant. So, should we skip the Presto implementation and just have payment by Debit/credit tap? That may solve many issues. Only real issue is if someone only has cash. Do we allow the train crew to take the cash as payment when the person boards?
Click to expand...

No one takes cash anymore, so I would doubt if it will be accepted onboard.
 
There are plenty of cheaper POS options than Presto. A simple bank credit card fee is likely 5% or less where Presto can be 15% or more.

While I'm not opposed to allowing commuter rides on the Northlander, some business considerations ought to apply, especially demand management.

The southbound run is innocuous, in the sense that any commuters would be boarding a somewhat full train (we hope) and they may or may not find a seat. Standee rides are not necessarily an evil, and an overcrowded Northlander would be a nice problem to have.......but that experience would possibly detract from the longer riding passenger experience.

The northbound ride is the bigger concern. Commuter passengers (who then leave a seat unoccupied for the rest of the trip) should not be allowed to squeeze out longer distance passengers who offer greater revenue. Some method of holding the commuters until all longer distance passengers are seated is desirable.

A big consideration is whether this option attracts a handful of riders (who are easily accommodated without crowding the train), versus a larger contingent who overwhelm the capacity of the (hopefully popular) long distance ride. I won't speculate what the numbers might amount to. The problem for ON is that once the option is made available, if it's too popular, it will be very hard to withdraw or scale back. I can understand why they might avoid it from the start, even if it leaves revenue on the table. I don't see the number of passengers getting on/off north of Gormley as balancing the number wanting to commute, but maybe I'm mistaken here.

We haven't heard whether the Northlander will be reserved seating, have we? An obvious solution would be to hold the number of available commuter seats to some low number and only release the remainder shortly before departure. We clearly would not want a long distance passenger to be turned away because a commuter demand has grabbed the seats first.

All of this leads me to believe that the NL fare should not be the prevailing GO fare but rather a premium fare that manages demand. Similar pricing has applied in the past to VIA passengers commuting from Union to Georgetown or Aldershot.

- Paul
 
Last edited:
crs1026 said:
There are plenty of cheaper POS options than Presto. A simple bank credit card fee is likely 5% or less where Presto can be 15% or more.

While I'm not opposed to allowing commuter rides on the Northlander, some business considerations ought to apply, especially demand management.

The southbound run is innocuous, in the sense that any commuters would be boarding a somewhat full train (we hope) and they may or may not find a seat. Standee rides are not necessarily an evil, but that experience would possibly detract from the longer riding passenger experience.

The northbound ride is the bigger concern. Commuter passengers (who then leave a seat unoccupied for the rest of the trip) should not be allowed to squeeze out longer distance passengers who offer greater revenue. Some method of holding the commuters until all longer distance passengers are seated is desirable.

A big consideration is whether this option attracts a handful of riders (who are easily accommodated without crowding the train), versus a larger contingent who overwhelm the capacity of the (hopefully popular) long distance ride. I won't speculate what the numbers might amount to. The problem for ON is that once the option is made available, if it's too popular, it will be very hard to withdraw or scale back. I can understand why they might avoid it from the start, even if it leaves revenue on the table. I don't see the number of passengers getting on/off north of Gormley as balancing the number wanting to commute, maybe I'm mistaken here.

We haven't heard whether the Northlander will be reserved seating, have we? An obvious solution would be to hold the number of available commuter seats to some low number and only release the remainder shortly before departure. We clearly would not want a long distance passenger to be turned away because a commuter demand has grabbed the seats first.

All of this leads me to believe that the NL fare should not be the prevailing GO fare but rather a premium fare that manages demand. Similar pricing has applied in the past to VIA passengers commuting from Union to Georgetown or Aldershot.

- Paul
Click to expand...
My assumption on the fare cost would be that it would be closer to an ONR bus fare.
For example, GO is $15.90 Union to Barrie. ONR Bus is $35.55.
Union to Gormley is $9.35. I'd expect about $20-$30 for the Northlander when it comes.
 
micheal_can said:
Please find me one transit agency that is in Northern ON, or even Central ON that does have a contactless system for payment. Reality is, many of these places cannot afford that upfront cost to create their own.
Click to expand...
www.thunderbay.ca

Lift Pass

www.thunderbay.ca www.thunderbay.ca

Fares – London Transit Commission

www.londontransit.ca www.londontransit.ca

roger1818 said:
No one takes cash anymore, so I would doubt if it will be accepted onboard.
Click to expand...
They all take cash (even the TTC). Whether many rider offer cash is another question.

crs1026 said:
There are plenty of cheaper POS options than Presto. A simple bank credit card fee is likely 5% or less where Presto can be 15% or more.

While I'm not opposed to allowing commuter rides on the Northlander, some business considerations ought to apply, especially demand management.

The southbound run is innocuous, in the sense that any commuters would be boarding a somewhat full train (we hope) and they may or may not find a seat. Standee rides are not necessarily an evil, and an overcrowded Northlander would be a nice problem to have.......but that experience would possibly detract from the longer riding passenger experience.

The northbound ride is the bigger concern. Commuter passengers (who then leave a seat unoccupied for the rest of the trip) should not be allowed to squeeze out longer distance passengers who offer greater revenue. Some method of holding the commuters until all longer distance passengers are seated is desirable.

A big consideration is whether this option attracts a handful of riders (who are easily accommodated without crowding the train), versus a larger contingent who overwhelm the capacity of the (hopefully popular) long distance ride. I won't speculate what the numbers might amount to. The problem for ON is that once the option is made available, if it's too popular, it will be very hard to withdraw or scale back. I can understand why they might avoid it from the start, even if it leaves revenue on the table. I don't see the number of passengers getting on/off north of Gormley as balancing the number wanting to commute, but maybe I'm mistaken here.

We haven't heard whether the Northlander will be reserved seating, have we? An obvious solution would be to hold the number of available commuter seats to some low number and only release the remainder shortly before departure. We clearly would not want a long distance passenger to be turned away because a commuter demand has grabbed the seats first.

All of this leads me to believe that the NL fare should not be the prevailing GO fare but rather a premium fare that manages demand. Similar pricing has applied in the past to VIA passengers commuting from Union to Georgetown or Aldershot.

- Paul
Click to expand...
You raise a valid question. The Northlander will be a ticketed fare; you buy a ticket to a certain destination on a certain date, and I assume a staffer checks it at some point. I don't think we know how platform access will work, but it won't be the same as GO's 'fare paid' zone. I doubt they would try to run both in parallel with GO enforcement only caring about certain passengers. Since the train won't be GO property I'm not sure they would have the authority to demand PoP but I don't know the regulations.
 
lenaitch said:
www.thunderbay.ca

Lift Pass

www.thunderbay.ca www.thunderbay.ca

Fares – London Transit Commission

www.londontransit.ca www.londontransit.ca
Click to expand...
Thank you.
lenaitch said:
You raise a valid question. The Northlander will be a ticketed fare; you buy a ticket to a certain destination on a certain date, and I assume a staffer checks it at some point. I don't think we know how platform access will work, but it won't be the same as GO's 'fare paid' zone. I doubt they would try to run both in parallel with GO enforcement only caring about certain passengers. Since the train won't be GO property I'm not sure they would have the authority to demand PoP but I don't know the regulations.
Click to expand...
My assumption is it will be like how Via currently operates at any GO station.
 
lenaitch said:
They all take cash (even the TTC). Whether many rider offer cash is another question.
Click to expand...

Last I checked TTC was a transit agency, not an intercity transportation service. As for your claim that all intercity transportation services allow you to pay cash onboard, I disagree. The reality is, it is getting harder and harder buy tickets with cash onboard any intercity transportation service. From what I can tell, Ontario Northland does not let you buy tickets from the driver (cash or otherwise), requiring instead that you to buy the ticket in advance, so I am not sure why people think the Northlander will be any different.

The only intercity transportation service that I can find that still does accept cash onboard is Flixbus. There might be others, but most that I saw either don't allow payment onboard or, if they do, don't accept cash onboard.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top