innsertnamehere
Superstar
it has been loaded onto my card less than 8 hours after doing the online deposit.
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nfitz
Superstar
The issue is, that they have to pass all the update information to every Presto reader in the system. Some of which only talk to the network once a day, overnight. 24 hours is more a worst-case scenario than a minimum. Though worst-case is really that a reader didn't manage to communicate one night, so there's no real guarantees.
Personally, I'm amazed they can do it this way. As usage grows, that's a huge amount of data that must be transmitted to each reader, and now held for 30 days? If you look at some other cards, such as Oyster in London, they are MUCH more restrictive on online loading, and you must specify which station you'll be using to tap on and receive your funds.
TOareaFan
Superstar
I think the issue is that it can take hours (up to 24) before you have access to the funds on your presto card because of the technical issues/design that others are talking about.
So someone is sitting at their desk...realizes the the trip they are taking in an hour is more than is on their card...they go online and load their card....but they may not have access to that load in time to take the trip.
We are in a world where we are used to more instant completion of transactions. A world where tim hortons can load a card instantly...why can't Presto...that is the sort of issues......I think.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
they can be loaded in person instantly.. can a Tims card be loaded instantly online? i agree that 24hrs is a bit long, but as I said I have loaded my card the night before and the balance was added the next morning, less than 8 hours later.
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nfitz
Superstar
For those that this seems to be an issue, the autoload is probably the solution. It's like magic ... every time it gets below the trigger value, it magically reloads. It's never failed to reload for me (but if it did, I'd notice, and then be able to sort it out before it got to 0).
LNahid2000
Senior Member
Not sure about a Tim card but I load my Starbucks card online instantly all the time.
TOareaFan
Superstar
All three presto cards in my household are on autoload and, yes, it solves most issues.....just be careful as your c.c. maturity date approaches....as I found out recently, the presto system (unlike most) does not send out a notice/reminder email saying that "the card we have on file is nearing its expiry date."
Hairball
Active Member
As someone above said, these transit smart cards usually are not always online and constantly synced, while actual stations can probably be instant, when we are talking about buses that travel a huge geographic area, it becomes difficult (though not impossible with current technology). It's not like doing a credit card transaction where we can have 5 seconds to connect to the server and get the new balance.
If you are loading a Starbucks or gift card, all you're basically saying is telling the server to increase your balance, the card itself does not need to "know" there was money added. But for transit cards, this is a key thing they need.
nfitz
Superstar
It's not really comparable though. Even Tim Horton's only has about 3,000 locations in Canada. TTC alone has over 2,400 buses and streetcars, and that's before you start counting stations, and other transit systems. Most importantly, the Tim Horton's and Starbucks are all hard-wired - and the buses may not even be in locations with mobile reception! Finally, the transaction time for buying the coffee can be relatively slow - 3-4 seconds wouldn't be that noticeable ... often seems to take 10-20 seconds with a credit card. Presto transaction time is 300 milliseconds - and if it's any slower you'll be problems with people boarding vehicles, and particularly on fare barriers in stations.
Edit ... Ah, Hairball seems to have beaten me to it - by about 300 milliseconds.
rbt
Senior Member
All TTC buses are location tracked via GPS; which requires frequently reporting their position upstream and do this every 20 to 30 seconds. It's pretty common for companies (UPS, FedEX, ...) with lots of vehicles to have near-real-time tracking l so I assume GO does too. If GO has tracking, they already have mobile uplinks in all of their vehicles.
Receiving a data burst every 10 minutes would be sufficient to handle card loads, and there will be very few places where they go 10 minutes without a network linkup and GO already knows exactly where those areas are. It's the places where buses disappear from their near-real-time position tracking system.
DavidH
Senior Member
True, but Presto was NOT designed by or for GO. It was quite independently designed, and given the need to support multiple agencies, the designers might have decided not to rely on agency-specific IT infrastructure. At the time that it was designed, GO was a separate agency from Presto (which was in MTO) and the other agencies were and remain even more separate. Even today, there are very real distinctions between GO and Presto within Metrolinx.
Besides, vehicle location updates are repeatable without any issues, so if one gets missed or inaccurately captured (e.g. the server got it but the bus thinks the server didn't get it), no harm done. When you're dealing with money, that's not good enough. The designers may also have decided that data bursts while out on a route were not safe enough. I can certainly see the potential issues, although there are other approaches that could have ensured reliable delivery.
I fully understand why people don't like the 24 hour load time, but we really don't know why those particular architectural choices were made. It may have been a choice of convenience, doing something slightly easier instead of doing the right thing, or it may have been something that was absolutely necessary given technical issues.
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nfitz
Superstar
The loading is certainly far better than I see in world class cities. I don't understand why this is such an issue for many.
Electrify
Senior Member
I've seen it released on to the card 10-20 minutes after loading it, essentially me loading it online and then walking to the Viva stop and tapping.
Likewise, it was once over 26 hours and it still didn't load after tapping - also at a Viva stop, resulting in me going into a negative.
I see no reason why they cannot make all stationary ones instant, as theoretically they are all hardwired into the network anyways. Portable ones like those on buses I suppose I can understand, though with cellular internet could they not just transmit updated balances to the machines wirelessly?
rbt
Senior Member
TCPIP and ethernet are extremely standard network tools that are used for damn near everything. That the backbone is mobile, fiber, microwave, or anything else doesn't particularly matter for this application.
Plug the damn reader into the mini switch on the bus, point it at the server, and call it a day. The electronics on the bus are not remarkably different from the kits in the station; the container (shell) is different but the guts are the same.
Due to the difficult of inter-organizational co-operation it might take a year to do this; so they should have it ready by 2009 (1 year after trials began).
David, I know Presto is a fucked up design but this is insanity for a $1B installation. We're getting far less of a result than Vancouver is with their $100M project.
nfitz
Superstar
Uh, hang on. I've seen reports that the new faregates they had to install to handle Compass at only 47 Skytrain station cost $170 million alone. And that doesn't include any of the buses or the back end for the system.
Where are you getting $100 million from?
At the same time TTC Presto installation isn't costing $1B. Isn't TTC bigger than Translink? And doesn't Presto cover a lot more than just TTC?