News   Nov 15, 2024
49-Storey Condo Proposed on Dundas West Near Kipling Mobility Hub
 1.8K     6 
News   Nov 15, 2024
Development Opportunity Offers Pre-Approved High-Rise Potential in Downtown Hamilton
 1.6K     1 
News   Nov 15, 2024
Crosstown Community Progressing at Don Mills and Eglinton
 1.8K     0 

Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

doady said:
It took 2 hours for GO to get to Erindale because the Gardiner Expressway was closed. Plus the bus was really crowded both ways, with a dozen standees each trip, so it took longer for boarding and letting people off. The 38 also arrived 8 minutes late as well (you can check the schedule and see). I already email Presto for refund. No way I can accept being penalized $1.90 because both the GO and MT buses took too long.
Click to expand...
You might be better to be asking GO for the refund, not Presto. Just walk into the Customer Service office at Union (whatever the office to the right and around the corner from the ticket counters is called). They should straighten it out in no time.

Not sure what Presto would do ... as their stuff seemed to work fine, and did as designed.

Now, what should happen, is that they should fine tune the criteria for co-fares, to be based on your more recent tap-off time off GO, rather than your initial tap-on time. It's easy to imagine that you can spend 2.5 hours on GO and waiting for a Mississauga Transit bus, even when things are working right!
 
nfitz said:
You might be better to be asking GO for the refund, not Presto. Just walk into the Customer Service office at Union (whatever the office to the right and around the corner from the ticket counters is called). They should straighten it out in no time.

Not sure what Presto would do ... as their stuff seemed to work fine, and did as designed.

Now, what should happen, is that they should fine tune the criteria for co-fares, to be based on your more recent tap-off time off GO, rather than your initial tap-on time. It's easy to imagine that you can spend 2.5 hours on GO and waiting for a Mississauga Transit bus, even when things are working right!
Click to expand...

Yes, transit here is pretty bad, but not THAT bad!

It was the supposed to be 3:50p. Even if 20 minutes late, I would have met northbound 38 scheduled for 5:03p at 5:13p (northbound 38 is always 10 minutes late on Saturdays), instead of the 6:27p one at 6:36p. It's a decent service, normally. Honestly, I had no idea the Gardiner was closed, and even the return trip I knew it was closed but I didn't think the traffic would be THAT bad. Going into Union it was only 20 minutes late, I thought going out would be same, but obviously I was wrong.

But yeah, I'll probably talk to the customer service at Union next time I'm there.
 
doady said:
But yeah, I'll probably talk to the customer service at Union next time I'm there.
Click to expand...
Probably a lot more pleasant experience than trying to get anything out of Presto's Accenture staff ... unless they've been given a blanket go-ahead to do refunds for anyone who suffered a similar fate during the weekend traffic.

Wow ... I guess in 20/20 hindsight, taking the subway to Islington and the Mississauga transit bus from there would have been faster.
 
I think that co-fares should be valid for only a short period of time -say 30 or 60 minutes - after tapping off on a bus. Since train travel can be pre-set for two zones, needing only a tap on, it would be harder to do for rail travel. It's not entirely uncommon for trains to arrive 30 or even 60 minutes late or for passengers to have to wait for the next one after a service or mechanical issue. This policy needs adjusting.
 
ShonTron said:
I think that co-fares should be valid for only a short period of time -say 30 or 60 minutes - after tapping off on a bus. Since train travel can be pre-set for two zones, needing only a tap on, it would be harder to do for rail travel. It's not entirely uncommon for trains to arrive 30 or even 60 minutes late or for passengers to have to wait for the next one after a service or mechanical issue. This policy needs adjusting.
Click to expand...
Ah, of course. You have to use the tap-on time for trains instead of the tap-off time, because of those that have a default trip set. It's that confounded default trip thing that messes everything up. Though I guess you have a similar problem when you start on local transit ... though it's hard to imagine all 2.5 hours elapsing before you tap onto GO.

I really don't understand how they make this 2.5 hour thing work. It's not difficult to find simple GO trips that are more than 2.5 hours. Look at this HTML schedule page.
http://www.gotransit.com/publicroot...&direction=1&day=1&page=3&New=&station=&zone=
So someone gets on the 11:25 AM bus at Newcastle, changes to the connecting GO Train in Oshawa at 12:38 pm ... and at the 2.5 hour mark (1:55 pm) they still haven't gotten to Mimico station yet. Or even the person who gets on a GO train in Oshawa at 12:38 pm (which means he has likely tapped in at 12:35 or earlier). And arrives on the same train in Aldershot at 2:48 pm. He has to tap onto local transit by 3:05 pm. So if he waits 20-minutes for a local bus, then he's already past 2.5 hours.
 
As long as the next leg begins BEFORE the 2.5 hours expire then that full leg counts as part of the trip. In your first example there would be no problems, but the second example would end up being two full-fare trips.

This issue is worthy of debate, but the transfer window has to end at some point. Whatever they choose there will be someone inconvenienced, but at some point we need to say that trips of a certain length or longer are statistical outliers and shouldn't fit into a system that works well for the other 9x.x%.

I do not profess to know where that point lies.
 
I faced these insane delays on the Milton bus this weekend myself.

The Friday inbound bus was I think 45 minutes late arriving to Erindale; I didn't note how long it took to get to Union though.

However the return bus on Saturday was 15 minutes late, and then it took about an hour to get to Bathurst, and another hour to get to Erindale. Luckily I have my car at Erindale.

But I definitely regretted not subwaying it this one weekend.
 
RedRocket191 said:
As long as the next leg begins BEFORE the 2.5 hours expire then that full leg counts as part of the trip. In your first example there would be no problems, but the second example would end up being two full-fare trips.
Click to expand...
In my first example, the rider hadn't even got to Mimico on the GO train yet, when the 2.5 hours expired, even though they had only taken that single train, and the bus that connects directly to it. I assumed they would still have another local leg (or even simply taken the connecting GO bus to McMaster). There are so many different things that they can do that create problems.

RedRocket191 said:
This issue is worthy of debate, but the transfer window has to end at some point.
Click to expand...
End ... it hasn't even started, to transfer from GO to local.

And does this mean that Presto can't be used for 100% trips from Newcastle to McMaster, even though they actually publish this on a schedule?

Sure, there should be limits. But they need to rethink how this all works. You shouldn't have to be contacting GO for refunds because your relatively short 40-minute GO Bus ride turned into an over 2-hour epic, and were at the 2:32 mark when you tapped onto local transit.

Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
I faced these insane delays on the Milton bus this weekend myself.
Click to expand...
I wonder if in the future GO can consider running some weekend rail service to Milton and Georgetown when the Gardiner is closed.
 
The time limit should just be a little more flexible that's all. For example, they could have automatically extended the time limit when I tapped off. 24 minutes left automatically extended to 1 hour or something, it would have been no problem.
 
With many phones now coming out with NFC capabilities (this IS what Presto uses?) would it not be possible to write an app that allows the card's balance to be updated from your phone???
 
^^ Only Presto 2.0, the version that will be installed on the TTC is capable of working with NFC on mobile devices.
 
Jaye101 said:
^^ Only Presto 2.0, the version that will be installed on the TTC is capable of working with NFC on mobile devices.
Click to expand...

I assume they mean that the card readers will be able work with NFC phones, that may be different than NFC phones being able to communicate with presto cards and add a balance.
 
When I drove to Kipling on Saturday to head downtown for Nuit Blanche I saw a huge line of people waiting to pay cash to take the subway. I just tapped my Presto card and was in. I felt sorry for those stupid people who pay cash :-]
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top