Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

[EnviroTO]

I think we've hit the nail on the head. You think there's Toronto, and then the GTA.
Newsflash - it's not "some other GTA region," it's ONE BIG REGION intended to be on ONE FARE SYSTEM.
Why is that confusing TTC-lovers? Toronto might be the centre of the universe, but it's not the whole thing.

If you look at ridership the other transit agencies are quite irrelevant. None of the other agencies even have a turnstile or a fare gate. With the TTC having the largest ridership and the greatest number of fare rates for the same service, greatest number of collection devices, greatest number of vehicle types, and greatest number of vehicles its needs should be front and centre to the selection of a fare system, not an afterthought.

Check your grammar and tenses - the province says they are INTEGRATING but you say nothing is INTEGRATED.
Could that be - and I'm just throwing this out for discussion - because the province is still INTEGRATING?

No, my tenses are correct. Presto is an advertisement about INTEGRATING, but it does nothing for integration because when fully rolled out nothing will actually be INTEGRATED. If they were really serious about integrating they would take over the whole thing, not roll out a new card for your wallet. Presto is aptly named. Presto being a magic word and magic being the art of illusion.

Oh, and one flaw with the credit card thing? Not everyone has one.

Oh, and one flaw with the Presto card thing? Not everyone has one. Far more people have credit cards and bank cards.

Who doesn't have a bank account? Every bank card will have tap and go capability in the next few years. Debit cards don't require a good credit rating.

Every tourist will have a bank card and a credit card... nobody will have a Presto card.

Or maybe someone having trouble with his credit cards doesn't want to put something else on them?

Or more likely there is someone who looks in their wallet and has a bank card or a credit card but don't have exact fare nor Presto. Do they need to go to a convenience store to buy tokens, go to some Presto agent to move money from one card to another, or can they tap and go?

People take their welfare cheque and deposit into a bank account... instantly this money is available on their bank card which they tap and go on the TTC. Convenient. But no, the province has a plan... these people will need to find a way to move money from their bank account to Presto.

I said it before and I'll say it again - this has nothing to do with making things easier for riders or using the best technology.

I agree. It has absolutely nothing to do with making things easier for riders, that is a side benefit. It has to do with a limited budget and a business case. The TTC only does things that make it easier for riders if they can show a revenue model which shows they will spend less or get more revenue. Replacing tokens or metropass with another card doesn't save the TTC any money at all. They still need to collect payments and convert those payments to a fare media. Credit and Debit card payments get rid of the need to handle fare media at all... it goes straight from bank account to bank account without ever being some kind of ticket, token, or card. That saves money and processing costs.

 

[EnviroTO]

In other news... we better hope no one still has to use that old fashioned cash payment system on PRESTO vehicles. I have ridden on several PRESTO buses now and the transfer printing process for these machines is terrible. I timed it at 5 seconds to print one. It's like they equipped them with a dot matrix printer. If you pull on the transfer as it's printing, even slightly, the printer shuts down and the operator has to open the machine and try to realign the paper, print out a test receipt and close it up again.

Yep. Presto is not ready for prime time. The need for a paper transfer printer tells how outdated the system already is.

 

[RedRocket191]

Yep. Presto is not ready for prime time. The need for a paper transfer printer tells how outdated the system already is.

The paper transfer printers are for people paying cash, not for presto users.

 

[EnviroTO]

Then they should use the TTC method. It is much quicker.

 

[RedRocket191]

Works for OC Transpo. Saves a crap load of paper IMO.

 

[CDL.TO]

Works for OC Transpo. Saves a crap load of paper IMO.

Yup. Works in a lot of places. It's unfortunate that PRESTO got bad printer technology, but that will undoubtedly be one of the easiest things to replace when more units get manufactured.

On the other side of the debate, having a credit card is not an issue. All the credit card companies offer both prepaid credit cards and credit card "gift cards", which use the same infrastructure but require you to load money on them ahead of time and work on a declining balance like a debit card. If we saw an open payment system get rolled out, we would simply see RFID credit cards for sale at ticket booths, at transit terminals, and in convenience stores that you can buy and load money on to. You wouldn't even need to register it if you didn't want to.

That said, I am yet to see any assurance that an open payment system will be able to offer the same functionality as a PRESTO smart card. Will open payment allow transit operators to collect statistics on how people move through the system to be used in service planning and transportation modelling? Will open payment track how someone moves through the system so, if applied to GO, it could calculate zone fares and co-fares? Will open payment give riders the peace-of-mind that if they just tap their card any time they board a transit vehicle that they will be charged the proper fare without having to deal with transfers and passes?

If I can see assurance that open payment will offer the same level of functionality as PRESTO, then I will think it's a great idea and sing its praises (and think that, yet again, Toronto has benefited from being a late adopter). But the whole point of a smart card is the functionality... if all PRESTO was intended to do was to replace the change in your pocket then the system would have been implemented 5 years ago at a fraction of the price.
`

 

[RedRocket191]

^ You've captured my sentiments exactly. If it works the way Presto does/will eventually when rollout is complete, I have NO problems with both systems being used. My suspicion is, however, that the TTC is going ahead with open payment so that their near-blatant position in opposition to Presto will be strenthened. That is not something I can support, because as far as I'm concerned the agreement with the province over funding trumps any other argument. People, companies and governments should not be able to weasel out of agreements (unless I'm allowed to have my OSAP debt excused, of course )

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I agree with the last couple of posts.
I don't have a problem with open payment, nor am I in love with Presto (since I haven't seen it yet).

But it strikes me that TTC has procrastinated and then pulled this out of thin air (in an election year, with a lame duck chair no less) for political, rather than transit reasons. That's what I find upsetting.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Looks like the Open Payment system is being pushed by the guy behind New York's smart card system (and currently behind the same city's piloted open payment system):

Man behind TTC’s push for “open payment” sticks to his guns
The New York-based transit guru behind the TTC’s controversial move toward “open payment” says he believes the electronic fare system would cost Toronto “a small fraction” of the cost of adopting the province’s Presto smart card.

Paul Korczak’s words are sure to further infuriate Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne, who on warned the TTC it risks losing hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies if it doesn’t halt its open payment efforts and fully implement Presto.

She urged the TTC to scrap its plan to issue, in early August, a Korczak-developed request-for-proposal and called TTC chair Adam Giambrone’s touting of open payment “troubling and confusing” given that Ontario has already spent $200 million on a system with one card to get commuters into and around all the GTA transit systems.

Korczak, awarded a $1.3 million contract to lay groundwork for the next-generation system where riders pay with a tap of their debit or credit card on an electronic reader, said he doesn’t get mixed up in politics.

But, sitting on a bench in the Eaton Centre on Sunday, he didn’t mince words arguing that open payment, which he helped pioneer at the end of his 27-year career with New York’s transit utility, would a better choice for Toronto than the smart-card technology he introduced to the Big Apple in 1999.

The savings, he said, come from the fact that the credit and debit technology, including tap-and-pay cards like Mastercard’s PayPass, is used in stores everywhere so the TTC could use off-the-shelf electronic readers and other equipment. Banks and credit card companies process the transactions, reducing the transit service’s operating costs.

Ontario has committed $173 million toward the estimated $400 million to $500 million cost of the TTC fully adopting Presto, now accepted at seven subway stations and soon to be at 12.

Asked how the cost of open payment would compare, Korczak said: “It’s a little early to put a number on it but my experience says it would be a small fraction of that (total Presto) number . . . .”

“Proprietary custom-built (smart card) fare systems are expensive to design, build and maintain and that’s why New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington are moving from them to open payment,” added Korczak, whose two-man company is involved with the switch in each of those cities.

“But the main benefit is customer service. Customers can use the card of their choice, debit or credit . . . just as they do in every retail shop in here,” he said, gesturing at the mall. “People know how to shop. There’s no learning curve.”

He estimated, based on his involvement pilot projects, including an ongoing one in New York, that open payment could be up and running on the TTC within 30 months of a contract being signed.

But Wynne is far from alone in arguing the TTC is doing its riders a disservice by going back to the drawing board when it previously supported a regional system already working on GO, the TTC and elsewhere.

The Toronto Board of Trade, an influential business group, argued last week that the costs of open payment are bound to be higher than those of Presto because going it alone would cost Toronto the provincial subsidies.

Rob Prichard, chief executive of the Metrolinx regional transit agency, also argued open payment costs would be higher and said, rather than criticizing Presto, the TTC should be rolling it out and helping make it better.

“The first step in all of this is getting Presto implemented across the region. The second step is a process of continual improvement.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ttc...push-for-open-payment-sticks-to-his-guns?bn=1

 

[EnviroTO]

With a chair that isn't running in the next election and a mayor that isn't running what benefit politically is there to supporting or not supporting Presto? There doesn't seem to be anything to gain politically by going against the province.

 

[Dan416]

With a chair that isn't running in the next election and a mayor that isn't running what benefit politically is there to supporting or not supporting Presto? There doesn't seem to be anything to gain politically by going against the province.

Um that's exactly why they're doing it, because they have no music to face. It's just an FU to the province probably due to the the delayed Transit City funding.

It's quite clear the TTC isn't doing this for benevolent reasons.

 

[nfitz]

Um that's exactly why they're doing it, because they have no music to face. It's just an FU to the province probably due to the the delayed Transit City funding.

Given that Giambrone has been talking about open payment since long before McGuinty cancelled the Transit City money, I really don't see the link.

If it's going to cost $400 million for TTC to implement Presto, and they could perhaps implement both Presto AND open payment for only $200 million or $300 million, then aren't we fools not to look at this in detail?

The bulk of Presto costs haven't been incurred yet, and the Government of Ontario is expecting Toronto to foot more of the cost of Presto than than Ontario has for the rest of the system combined.

 

[nfitz]

Well for once Royson James nailed it:

Province-TTC spat hurts GTA transit users ... it concludes:

There is a solution. Allow the TTC to pursue this potentially good idea, as a pilot project. Changing over the rest of the GTA should then not be difficult.

Technology changes so often and quickly that it is almost impossible to avoid getting stuck with outdated systems. But it would be negligent for the TTC to plow ahead when the signals clearly point to a changing landscape, where Presto-type systems are yesterday’s ideal.

Unless, the province is on the hook for millions in its secret contract with the Presto provider?

 

[EnviroTO]

Um that's exactly why they're doing it, because they have no music to face. It's just an FU to the province probably due to the the delayed Transit City funding.

It's quite clear the TTC isn't doing this for benevolent reasons.

Is it? They did listen to a presentation by Dexit long ago. They have looked at new fare boxes for a while. They did introduce new Metropass machines. Why is this move a master plan of evil and all the other things they have done normal operations? If it truly was to spite the province why not have a TTC version of tap-and-go rather than a VISA / Mastercard / Interac RFID plan which makes logical sense. To spite them fully shouldn't they have selected something a little more illogical? Maybe VISA and Mastercard are in on this scheme to spite the province. Did you ever ask yourself why didn't our credit cards have this a long time ago? Why now after the province came up with Presto are these credit card companies coming up with this stuff? The timing is suspect don't you think? Interac is coming out with RFID in 2011 and the TTC tender will close in 2011. Interac hates the provincial Liberals obviously.

 

[Dan416]

It's quickly becoming clear that the forum is becoming ever more divided between those who blindly follow the TTC on every aspect and those who don't.