Leo_Chan
Senior Member
Incoming complaints about TTC Presto transfers from buses not working.
|
|
|
Catenary
Active Member
Ottawa's solution of equipping the gates with 2D scanners and having transfers on the buses print out with a timestamped QR code looks more and more reasonable all the time.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
It was also standard with the first generation of Presto machines that the TTC installed at a handful of stations
Tuscani01
Senior Member
The paper Presto tickets are already being tested at St. Clair and Union Station. The testing started in November and they should be available to the public in June.
TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
Feels like every 10 pages or so we should remind ourselves that actual "world class cities" have been using fare cards, and solved these issues, years ago. Without going on Wikpedia to check dates, I remember using a Metrocard in New York in the late 1990s. I used an Oyster card in London, must have been 15 years ago.
And here we are, people freaking out over Metropasses on Twitter and (per a post on the previous page) no thought put into - given the embarrassingly high Metropass multiplier - simply eliminating the darned thing and replacing it with daily/weekly/monthly caps. Just like they have in other places and have for years. The systemic failures and navel gazing and hysteria would be embarrassing if anyone outside the GTA paid attention. Toronto patting itself on the back for having managed to figure out 2-hour fares is almost as sad to me as celebrating the minimal achievements of the King Street Pilot and Bloor Street Bike Lanes. We're not doing anything other cities didn't do bigger and better years and years ago. (And that includes 905 systems, which have things like 2-hour fares and balance displays on Presto for, jeeze, almost ten years now! I mean, jeeze, get it together already!)
And here we are, people freaking out over Metropasses on Twitter and (per a post on the previous page) no thought put into - given the embarrassingly high Metropass multiplier - simply eliminating the darned thing and replacing it with daily/weekly/monthly caps. Just like they have in other places and have for years. The systemic failures and navel gazing and hysteria would be embarrassing if anyone outside the GTA paid attention. Toronto patting itself on the back for having managed to figure out 2-hour fares is almost as sad to me as celebrating the minimal achievements of the King Street Pilot and Bloor Street Bike Lanes. We're not doing anything other cities didn't do bigger and better years and years ago. (And that includes 905 systems, which have things like 2-hour fares and balance displays on Presto for, jeeze, almost ten years now! I mean, jeeze, get it together already!)
We don't even have to look that far for monthly caps. GO does it.
TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
There is no problem in Toronto that has not been addressed and solved by someone else. Probably next door. When did Presto start rolling out on GO? I think it was 2009? And other 905 municipalities a couple of years after that?
I understand the issues scaling things up for Toronto and that there are legit back-end issues with Accenture but it seems to me most of the problems can be traced back to TTC and Toronto and their inability to get with the program/adapt to change etc. If you live in Toronto, you'd never know Presto was working just fine for millions of people before y'all got on board.
Watching TTC Twitter the last few days ... shamed to live even in this province.
hw621
Senior Member
what are these twits?
tripwire
Active Member
I've been meaning to say the same thing for some time now. Hong Kong has had their Octopus card for decades now. We aren't doing anything new, and so I'm not sure why Presto has been so maligned and slow. Would it be a case of gov't having to use the cheapest bid?
Maybe they should've skip a custom card and just moved on with people using their debit or credit card.
steveintoronto
Superstar
amnesiajune
Senior Member
There's good reasons to not use capping to replace metropasses. By having people buy a pass for unlimited travel at the beginning of the month, they end up using transit more often. If we had a system like Go Transit's, people would end up deciding to take transit less because they need to pay each time. This means more people driving and less revenue for the TTC.
Go Transit's system makes sense for commuter bus/rail service. The TTC's system makes sense for a local transit system.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
Presto has been working perfectly fine on Go Transit and the 905 transit systems for seven years. The TTC is the system that's maligned and slow.
TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
Maybe you have a point but checking back to CodeRedTO's recent report to get the exact number, you need to take 45 trips to make a Metropass pay for itself in a month. That was the worst multiplier of any transit system they surveyed, aside from Los Angeles. So people only "end up using transit more often" because they have to, to justify the unfair cost. In theory, there's no reason knowing you've hit your cap (which could be, for the sake of argument, 35 trips instead of 45) wouldn't also encourage you to use transit.
My main point is that Presto allows for more creativity with fares, but it's useless if your entire governing principle is leaning on fares and exploiting customers rather than subsidizing the system to pay for transit. Maybe capping isn't the answer, at least on its own, for TTC, but simply porting it over with its usual over-inflation price increase is just one more example of their lack of outside-the-(fare)box thinking, IMHO.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
Yes, but that only happens at the end of the month, and a lot of people will find that if they spend the whole month saying "I'll drive, it's faster and cheaper" for everything except commuting, they get close but never actually hit that cap. So again... more cars on the road, less revenue for the TTC, what's the upside here?
TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
I'm sure there are expert studies out there on what incentives work and don't work, what an optimal multiplier and/or cap is etc. I don't know if it's true, psychologically, that someone who knows that if they use a service, every time after X it's free, therefore spends the earlier part of the period postponing the inevitable moment where the service becomes "free." My wife certainly loves going to Starbucks to get "stars" so she can earn free rewards and all the promos they send indicate people love doing various things to get to the point of earning a reward. Sames goes for Scene points or other reward programs where you see every transaction as moving you closer to something "free." I also get that coffee is not transit, I'm not just not sure it's as simple a calculus as you lay out.
I'd also guess there are lots of people who take transit every day, for whom a Metropass is an investment not worth making, which seem self-defeating to me. The Metropass does encourage, say, someone who has invested to hop on the bus for a short trip they might not "need" to take, but that ridership statistic isn't necessarily significant. London uses capping and while that hardly proves it would work or be necessary here, it does suggest there is potential value. To wit:
Fare capping represents a growing trend in transit because it offers a win to both agencies and riders. Capping incentivizes riders to switch to mobile or card payment options, reducing agency overhead associated with cash handling. Meanwhile, riders appreciate the convenience and assurance of knowing they aren’t paying more for fares than necessary ... [In New York City] Fare capping can be a salve for straphangers who are frustrated at the prospect of scheduled fare increases in 2019 with no discernible improvement in service. At a time when many are turning their backs on subways and buses altogether, it could bring riders back to the system.
Anyway, I don't want more cars on the road or, I guess, less revenue for TTC. I just think it's a bit more complicated than you present it and having an electronic fare card opens a lot of possibilities (off-peak fares would be another prime example) that can be used to improve ridership experience or off-set rising base fares (and thereby drive ridership growth) and TTC has shown itself to be pretty retrograde in its thinking.
I'd also guess there are lots of people who take transit every day, for whom a Metropass is an investment not worth making, which seem self-defeating to me. The Metropass does encourage, say, someone who has invested to hop on the bus for a short trip they might not "need" to take, but that ridership statistic isn't necessarily significant. London uses capping and while that hardly proves it would work or be necessary here, it does suggest there is potential value. To wit:
Fare capping represents a growing trend in transit because it offers a win to both agencies and riders. Capping incentivizes riders to switch to mobile or card payment options, reducing agency overhead associated with cash handling. Meanwhile, riders appreciate the convenience and assurance of knowing they aren’t paying more for fares than necessary ... [In New York City] Fare capping can be a salve for straphangers who are frustrated at the prospect of scheduled fare increases in 2019 with no discernible improvement in service. At a time when many are turning their backs on subways and buses altogether, it could bring riders back to the system.
Anyway, I don't want more cars on the road or, I guess, less revenue for TTC. I just think it's a bit more complicated than you present it and having an electronic fare card opens a lot of possibilities (off-peak fares would be another prime example) that can be used to improve ridership experience or off-set rising base fares (and thereby drive ridership growth) and TTC has shown itself to be pretty retrograde in its thinking.