Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

[nfitz]

Does GO cheat you out of money with PRESTO? If I took the BUS from U of Guelph to Cooksville, and then the Cooksville to Union TRAIN, I'd be paying two different fares instead of the one I get now between Guelph and Union. (Roughly 14$ vs 11$ ow)

Should be $10.83 either way. Tap on when you get on the bus, tap off when you get off at Cooksville, tap on at Cooksville GO, tap off at Union GO. I'd think the transactions on the card for the 4 taps should be $4.20, $3.90, $4.20 and -$1.47.

Have you tried this? PRESTO should always be same price or cheaper, subject to rounding errors and oddities on buses between zones.

 

[RedRocket191]

I haven't made this particular tip, but I've made very complex PRESTO trips before deliberately trying to break the system. Once did a local bus ---> GO bus --> GO train --> Local bus and all the discounts were calculated perfectly. Done GO train --> local bus and GO bus --> local bus trips that are ineligible for the discount and still got it. Short of failing to tap off, or not understanding the current fare rules, you're not going to get cheated out of your money.

What concerns me is that royalrivers opening statement was "does GO cheat you out of money..." More marketing needs to be done to increase adoption if people are coming from this default sentiment. When you let each transit agencies set their own policies, it allows one agency to deflect blame upon another, and i suspect that's why people are misinformed about what the card can do for them.

 

[royalrivers]

I haven't made this particular tip, but I've made very complex PRESTO trips before deliberately trying to break the system. Once did a local bus ---> GO bus --> GO train --> Local bus and all the discounts were calculated perfectly. Done GO train --> local bus and GO bus --> local bus trips that are ineligible for the discount and still got it. Short of failing to tap off, or not understanding the current fare rules, you're not going to get cheated out of your money.

What concerns me is that royalrivers opening statement was "does GO cheat you out of money..." More marketing needs to be done to increase adoption if people are coming from this default sentiment. When you let each transit agencies set their own policies, it allows one agency to deflect blame upon another, and i suspect that's why people are misinformed about what the card can do for them.

Its mostly the troubles with some drivers when I have the 10 ride paper ticket when transferring at Cooksville because its not the zone to zone normal route - the Georgetown/Kitchener bus - and I always have to explain that I can transfer even with a 20 minute layover, even though the website says no layovers yet the GO info line guy said I have 4 hours to complete a trip so it should not be a problem. The reason I said Does GO cheat you out of money and because I have heard many a story of different fares being taken off between the transfer point and not the straight zone to zone I am doing with the transfer / paper ticket

 

[RedRocket191]

Its mostly the troubles with some drivers when I have the 10 ride paper ticket when transferring at Cooksville because its not the zone to zone normal route - the Georgetown/Kitchener bus - and I always have to explain that I can transfer even with a 20 minute layover, even though the website says no layovers yet the GO info line guy said I have 4 hours to complete a trip so it should not be a problem. The reason I said Does GO cheat you out of money and because I have heard many a story of different fares being taken off between the transfer point and not the straight zone to zone I am doing with the transfer / paper ticket

PRESTO doesn't use the same zones as paper tickets anyway. Perhaps this is the source of the differing fares?

 

[royalrivers]

$2.10 extra

Like I said, the paper ticket fare zone, 02 (Union) to 39 (Guelph) costs $10.83 but if you do it with PRESTO, they would split your rides up 02 (Union) to Cooksville at $4.68 and Cooksville to Guelph at $8.10 making the trip $12.78. With the paper ticket, you just show the driver and they let you transfer on, which PRESTO should be doing but, from what I have been told from others experiences, Presto takes the extra dough.

That is $10.83 and 12.78 = $1.95 difference....a lot of cash when you add that up for 10 rides.

 

[nfitz]

... from what I have been told from others experiences, PRESTO takes the extra dough.

I believe you've been misinformed. Why not try it and see what it actually does first. And if does does charge it higher then talk to GO. Unless the total trip takes more than 2.5 hours, there shouldn't be a problem.

This doesn't look like a common trip though. From Guelph to Cooksville, it only works twice a day. You can either catch the 5:35 AM from University of Guelph to Cooksville arriving 6:40 AM and then the 6:50 AM from Cooksville arriving Union at 7:20 AM. Or the 6:25 from University of Guelph arriving Cooksville 7:40 AM and then the 7:50 from Cooksville arriving Union at 8:23 AM.

Like I said, the paper ticket fare zone, 02 (Union) to 39 (Guelph) costs $11.70 but if you do it with PRESTO, they would split your rides up 02 (Union) to Cooksville at $5.05 and Cooksville to Guelph at $8.75 making the trip $13.80.

These are the full-fare prices though. Both the 10-ride prices and the PRESTO prices are lower than that.

Sure, if you do this every day, it would add up if it is costing more. But why not try it once using PRESTO, and see what happens, instead of having a debate where no one involved has actually seen it not work.

 

[Jonny5]

I just spent 20 minutes looking at ways to get from Union to U Guelph and my head really hurts now. Anyway, I saw the other alternatives as continuing on the Milton train to Meadowvale and then transferring to the 407 bus to Guelph or taking the Kitchener train to Bramalea and then transferring to the U Guelph bus. What is the preferred route one is supposed to take according to GO?

 

[RedRocket191]

Like I said, the paper ticket fare zone, 02 (Union) to 39 (Guelph) costs $11.70 but if you do it with PRESTO, they would split your rides up 02 (Union) to Cooksville at $5.05 and Cooksville to Guelph at $8.75 making the trip $13.80. With the paper ticket, you just show the driver and they let you transfer on, which PRESTO should be doing but, from what I have been told from others experiences, Presto takes the extra dough.

That is $13.80 - 11.70 = $2.10 difference....a lot of cash when you add that up for 10 rides.

For all we know, PRESTO could see that you're getting off at Guelph and then re-adjust the fare to make it irrelevant which route you took.

 

[Electrify]

I just spent 20 minutes looking at ways to get from Union to U Guelph and my head really hurts now. Anyway, I saw the other alternatives as continuing on the Milton train to Meadowvale and then transferring to the 407 bus to Guelph or taking the Kitchener train to Bramalea and then transferring to the U Guelph bus. What is the preferred route one is supposed to take according to GO?

If you can't take the GO train, I would look at Greyhound. I used to date a girl that went to school there several years ago, and the GO was way too local for such a long trip. Things may have changed since then though (I think there is a 407 bus which goes from York to Guelph now, but I don't know how long it takes).

Anyways, in case anyone was wondering, my Presto card had a ride in the washing machine yesterday. Today I went to the Viva stop to check the balance to see if it still works, and it does! It did seem slightly less responsive, but that might have just been me paying too much attention. Either way, they are washing machine resistant which is good to know.

 

[Electrify]

Just read a messed up story about Presto on lrt.daxack.ca

First Problem with Presto
I have read of some problems that people have had with Presto and, for the most part, they mainly had to do with applying for and activating the card online. I am also aware of an issue when tapping onto a vehicle when another RFID card is near the Presto card, such as a credit card equipped with this technology. Until now, I have never run into a real problem.

All that changed last week when my daughter returned to school after the break. We didn’t think to check her Presto balance until the evening of Sunday January 8. At that time, it was $2.90 and I did a $20 I-POS transfer, knowing it would take about 24 hours to get to her card. With the continuing strike at YRT, she would be getting a ride to school in the morning and wouldn’t need to use the card until the afternoon. The new ticket price for student fare is $2.10, so there would be enough to cover her until the e-purse load occurs.

At the end of Monday January 9, her e-purse balance was $0.80, still awaiting the $20 load. She did not need to use transit until Wednesday afternoon and boarded as usual. The bus she boarded had a non-working Presto terminal, so there was no need to top on. Her next use of transit was not until Friday after school, when she again tapped on without her nor the operator noticing an error, though one of her friends indicated she thought she saw a red light on the terminal. She needed a second fare a few hours later on Friday and when she tapped on, the operator indicated that there were insufficient funds on the Presto card, so she had to pay the cash fare of $3.50.

Looking at her card online Friday evening, it only showed a balance of $0.80 and the transaction from the Monday that brought it down to that balance. I called Presto’s customer service line and they could see that the card went into a negative balance and could see the load but could offer no explanation as to why the load was not there by the Wednesday. They also could not do anything about bringing it “out of a negative balance” over the phone, and that I would have to either go to a GO station or a transit operator’s customer service office.

This will cost me $2.80 (plus my time), and since I have my daughter’s Presto card, she is using my wife’s card to get to school, which will charge us $0.70 more than necessary (adult ticket/Presto fare is $2.80 and student ticket/Presto fare is $2.10).

Will they be able to restore her Presto card balance and reimburse today’s costs plus the extra amount paid on Friday ($1.40 - $3.50 cash fare was paid instead of $2.10)?

Stay tuned…

Update at 10:45 am: I am reasonably happy with the results of this, but that may only be because my daughter received a “free” trip last week. I do have some new understanding into the workings of Presto.

When there is not enough balance on the card when it is tapped, one of two things will occur. If your card is not registered, it will be denied. If your card is registered, it will be allowed to enter into having a negative balance. I suspect this occurred with my daughter tapped on the first trip on Friday. The terminal probably did display a red light, but the operator likely did not receive a message that the fare was invalid.

When this occurs, the card is locked. At this point, nothing can be done with the card until the negative balance plus a 25 cent service charge is paid. This can only be done at a GO station or at a transit operator’s customer service centre. This wasn’t totally made clear by the Presto representative I spoke with on Friday. They did say that the card could only be unlocked, but mentioned nothing about what was needed. It doesn’t matter if there is a new balance to be loaded onto the card, because it can’t be loaded while the card is locked. Ergo, that balance cannot be used to pay what is needed to unlock the card. Oddly, in looking at the transactions on my daughter’s card, there is no transaction that deducted $2.10 from the balance of $0.80. There were two attempts to load the $20.00 when it was locked, so the balance remained at -$1.10. Why it wasn’t -$1.30 is a mystery.

I was hoping to leave YRT’s office with a $19.40 balance on my daughter’s card, which was $20 less the trips she took last week, plus the costs of all this mess. I had to pay $1.35 ($1.10 negative balance plus $0.25 service charge) to get the card unlocked, leaving it’s balance at zero. The load would not take place until a balance check was done on the card, though why they could not perform that operation at the YRT office is another mystery. If one goes there to pay and add a balance on the card, it is loaded immediately. I suspect there is a way the office can do a balance check, but lack of training prevents them from doing so. Since Richmond Hill Centre terminal is a five minute walk from the offices, I immediately went there to perform a balance check. The balance now showed $20. Given that I had to pay $1.35, the net effect is $18.65.

http://lrt.daxack.ca/blog/?p=178

So to sum up, the guy adds money to the card, and nearly a week later it still hadn't loaded and ended up locking, and HE was charged to unlock the card? If a private business had done this, I'm pretty sure it would be illegal!

 

[Komiksulo]

I've said this before: disabling attempts to load money into the card--attempts to correct problems--is generally not a good idea.

I suspect that somewhere in the planning process, someone said, "...and when the card goes into negative balance, it gets locked so that the holder can't use it again until it's been refilled", and then someone else thought, "Lock? That means all functions are disabled" without looking at the context of the lock and what it was trying to accomplish. It's possible that the people implementing the lock couldn't see the context; they just got a request for a generic lock. A 'travel lock' disabling use while allowing all payment and reload functions would make more sense.

 

[royalrivers]

Wrong prices but yes PRESTO takes the extra

Sorry I put the wrong fares, I meant to put in the 10 ride fare amount not the normal fare amounts - my bad. Second, I just witness it first hand this Sunday. It did indeed split the bus fare trips into 2 different trips (Union - Cooksville, Cooksville to U of Guelph) and not one. Now, this is on a card with no locked in destinations (no set zones). If it was set for Guelph to Union, I am not 100% sure PRESTO would correct it at Guelph. PRESTO customer service was not helpful at all with this question.

 

[royalrivers]

I believe you've been misinformed. Why not try it and see what it actually does first. And if does does charge it higher then talk to GO. Unless the total trip takes more than 2.5 hours, there shouldn't be a problem.

This doesn't look like a common trip though. From Guelph to Cooksville, it only works twice a day. You can either catch the 5:35 AM from University of Guelph to Cooksville arriving 6:40 AM and then the 6:50 AM from Cooksville arriving Union at 7:20 AM. Or the 6:25 from University of Guelph arriving Cooksville 7:40 AM and then the 7:50 from Cooksville arriving Union at 8:23 AM.

These are the full-fare prices though. Both the 10-ride prices and the PRESTO prices are lower than that.

Sure, if you do this every day, it would add up if it is costing more. But why not try it once using PRESTO, and see what happens, instead of having a debate where no one involved has actually seen it not work.

There are many more trips then that from Cooksville to Guelph University and Guelph University to Cooksville with tranfers to/from Milton bus/trains Monday to Friday and Sunday, plus there is also the 407 service via Meadowvale to York U and Guelph University with tranfers to Milton train/bus to/from Union. These trips are very common among University students.

I corrected the prices my first post and have a response to your PRESTO test above.

 

[royalrivers]

I just spent 20 minutes looking at ways to get from Union to U Guelph and my head really hurts now. Anyway, I saw the other alternatives as continuing on the Milton train to Meadowvale and then transferring to the 407 bus to Guelph or taking the Kitchener train to Bramalea and then transferring to the U Guelph bus. What is the preferred route one is supposed to take according to GO?

That Meadovale route is one way, the other is via Cooksville - http://www.gotransit.com/publicroot/...table=29&new=Y You can either take the Milton train or bus from Union and connect to several of these buses to U o Guelph. many have much shorter transfer time then Meadowvale.

 

[nfitz]

I just witness it first hand this Sunday. It did indeed split the bus fare trips into 2 different trips (Union - Cooksville, Cooksville to U of Guelph) and not one.

That seems odd.

Can you cut-and-paste from your Transactions History? Perhaps there is a clue in there.