hw621
Senior Member
Very awkward and cumbersome. Another example of lacking integration, for the Winter in particular. Good thing I am not going to Waterloo any time soon.
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innsertnamehere
Superstar
The GO station will be moved over to the LRT in the near term, but yes, right now, very awkward, bordering on useless.
jcam
Active Member
My PRESTO sits in the money pocket of the wallet, and I've had no issue on the TTC's new gate readers.
Kyle Campbell
Active Member
Considering OC Transpo has all of the those things (upass, paper transfer, etc) in addition to presto I'm not sure GRTs argument makes sense. Although maybe Ottawa's physical distance and size allowed it to avoid the "thou shalt not pay with anything other than presto" dictate that seems forced in the GTA.
Leo_Chan
Senior Member
Does anyone know if Metrolinx/Preto has an informational site that describes what each beeping sound from tapping your card on the reader mean (with sound of course)? I know there’s one for the lights, but what about sound?
Kyle Campbell
Active Member
I know in Ottawa there's three different beeps, one for passes, one for epurse, and one for an error
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Leo_Chan
Senior Member
I don't know if this was covered before, but is this how YRT -> GO -> TTC works?
$3.63 for YRT
$-2.63 for transfering (YRT co-fare is $1)
$5.30 for GO
$X.XX for distance
$1.50 for TTC
$3.63 for YRT
$-2.63 for transfering (YRT co-fare is $1)
$5.30 for GO
$X.XX for distance
$1.50 for TTC
DKsan
Active Member
When GRT initially issued its requirements, PRESTO couldn't do what it was asking for, and probably wouldn't confirm/answer that it would have the capacity in the future.
The co-fare is applied when you tap off GO. So instead of the full tap off price, you get a refund, or I guess if you're coming from really, really far, a discount.
Kyle Campbell
Active Member
Oddly Ottawa has supported this for many years (since 2013). I wonder if presto just didn't want to provide the same service to GRT. Ottawa had to have this because they also needed to support smart cards from STO on the Quebec side.
Megaton327
Senior Member
It would be:
$3.63 for YRT
$5.30 for GO tap on
$X.XX for distance MINUS $2.63 for YRT co-fare
$1.50 for TTC
Reverse trip:
$3.00 TTC
$5.30 for GO tap on
$X.XX for distance MINUX $1.50 TTC co-fare
$1 for YRT
Megaton327
Senior Member
I have found an interesting edge case where the $1.50 TTC discount costs MORE for a GO rider. I often take the train from Aurora to Union, and recently it's become increasingly frequent that my return trip takes place within the 3 hour transfer window. The GO trip is normally $8.26 each way. The return trip within 3 hours is $3.56, a savings of $4.70, for a round trip of $11.82 vs normally $16.52.
The TTC discount, however, closes the GO transfer window on your card, and vice versa. So, if I did this 3 hour round trip before the $1.50 discount, my trip would be: $8.26 GO, $3.00 TTC around downtown using various free transfer loopholes, $3.56 GO home, total $14.82. With the "discount", it becomes $8.26 GO, $1.50 TTC, $8.26 GO, total $18.02, which is $3.20 more than it was before the "discount".
So I bought a 2nd presto card, and now when I'll be under 3 hours I use my own card for GO, and my other card for local TTC trips. When I'll be over 3 hours, I stick to my own card to get the discounts. In just 2 trips I made back more than the $6 I spent on the card.
I remember when Presto was advertised as always giving you the cheapest possible fare by intelligently calculating it based on your travels in the background, with no special intervention needed. Although I shouldn't complain since I never paid this little pre-Presto...not to mention that I've probably saved $500 or so in free TTC transfers that I shouldn't have gotten over the past few years.
The TTC discount, however, closes the GO transfer window on your card, and vice versa. So, if I did this 3 hour round trip before the $1.50 discount, my trip would be: $8.26 GO, $3.00 TTC around downtown using various free transfer loopholes, $3.56 GO home, total $14.82. With the "discount", it becomes $8.26 GO, $1.50 TTC, $8.26 GO, total $18.02, which is $3.20 more than it was before the "discount".
So I bought a 2nd presto card, and now when I'll be under 3 hours I use my own card for GO, and my other card for local TTC trips. When I'll be over 3 hours, I stick to my own card to get the discounts. In just 2 trips I made back more than the $6 I spent on the card.
I remember when Presto was advertised as always giving you the cheapest possible fare by intelligently calculating it based on your travels in the background, with no special intervention needed. Although I shouldn't complain since I never paid this little pre-Presto...not to mention that I've probably saved $500 or so in free TTC transfers that I shouldn't have gotten over the past few years.
hw621
Senior Member
Lol, can you elaborate on the $500 free TTC transfer please?
Megaton327
Senior Member
The TTC's official policy is that transfers are valid for a one-way continuous trip with no stopovers. Presto, however, is not properly set up for that. More or less, it's set up to offer a free 2-hour timed transfer except you can't tap on the same route twice in a row.
So, if I take the subway from Union to Dundas and do some shopping, then later I take the 6 Bay bus back to Union, I should pay an extra $3 for the return trip, but with Presto it's free. Another example is let's say I take the 514 Cherry from Yonge & King to Distillery Loop, I can take the 121 Front-Esplanade back to Yonge and Wellington, saving $3.
And there are cases where it even lets you tap on the same route twice. Since the 509 and 510 share much of their route, it doesn't look like it's allowed to charge you twice when tapping anywhere along Queen's Quay or on Spadina, i.e. I've tapped on a westbound 509 at harbourfront centre then eastbound 510 at Spadina and gotten it for free. I'm not sure if you could just go and tap 10 times in 2 hours all for free, but definitely a return trip along the same stretch is possible.
Additionally, I've taken the 506 westbound from University to Spadina then eastbound from Spadina back to University and only paid once. That one I can't quite figure out as even the exact corner/side of the street I tapped was correct both times. I guess it's such a small radius that it has to assume it's inaccurate, and my Spadina tap might have been for a 510. I've also done St Patrick-Queen's Park-506 westbound to Spadina-510 southbound to Dundas-506 eastbound to University, a circle (well, rectangle) for free.
Also, temporary readers, i.e. for subway stations while under construction to receive faregates, have a location of "0", I've gone Union-St George-Union on one fare. Also if a streetcar/bus reader can't get a GPS fix, its location defaults to "0" or something like "Queen St E at Neville Park Blvd" or "Leslie Barns" and you can tap on the same route twice as those inaccurate reads are all treated like "0" from what I can tell.
Add all of that up, and I think Presto transfers have been live since what, end of 2015? Early 2016? I've definitely saved hundreds.
Moot point as of this August when it officially becomes a 2-hour transfer with no same-route exception. I've kind of enjoyed making a game of what kind of weird route combos I can take to get a ridiculously long run of free transfers, but it'll be nice just to not have to worry (well, except for running a stopwatch and running a bit faster when at 1h50min...)
Andy T
Active Member
It gives you a free transfer on the same route if the reader doesn’t know what route it’s on or if it on a different branch. For example: I hop on the 53 and made a return journey a hour later. It recorded the second tap as being a 53A bus and gave me the transfer even though it’s the same route.