Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

[Justin10000]

Why did the province go with Accenture? Why not with a company with more experience with electronic fare systems such as Cubic?

 

[vic]

So far, I generally like my Presto Card, though I don't use it much. Generally only once/day on my way home from work to access TTC at Kipling Station. Will use it on Mississauga buses when it's available, and GO too. I've also used it for the TTC at Union.

So, I like the card, but I find the whole fare loading scheme to be clunky.

• Why do we need to tap on or use a one of the balance checkers before we can check our recent transactions online?? Seems so backwards...
• I recently used up my my Presto balance so I signed up for the automatic deductions. So far, no deductions have been made, so I've been using tokens. Do I need to manually add a balance again, so that it triggers the autoload the next time I pass under my threshold? Why didn't it just top me up right away?
• So this morning I manually topped up again via the website, to an amount just above my autoload threshold. Got the email confirmation that payment went through, but again I need to tap on before the website actually gets updated with my current balance. Grrr.
• So after I pay my fare today, my balance will be below the threshold and I expect to see that autoload kick in. Let's see how that goes...

So my Presto card still didn't work last night on my way home. I tried tapping on at TTC Kipling, which didn't work. SO I used the balance checker at GO Kipling and it said I was still in the red. I guess they're not kidding when they say, "Changes to your account may take up to 24 hours to process."

And the website still shows that I have a negative balance. I'm wondering if this requires some kind of manual intervention from Presto staff? I mean...the payment went through, automatic emails were sent, but still no actual e-purse update? Bizarre.

Let's see if it works this evening....

I suppose that after my autoloads start working properly, it will be smooth sailing. But in the meantime, it's a big pain the butt, and needlessly confusing.

Good thing I carry tokens.

 

[Tuscani01]

So my Presto card still didn't work last night on my way home. I tried tapping on at TTC Kipling, which didn't work. SO I used the balance checker at GO Kipling and it said I was still in the red. I guess they're not kidding when they say, "Changes to your account may take up to 24 hours to process."

And the website still shows that I have a negative balance. I'm wondering if this requires some kind of manual intervention from Presto staff? I mean...the payment went through, automatic emails were sent, but still no actual e-purse update? Bizarre.

Let's see if it works this evening....

I suppose that after my autoloads start working properly, it will be smooth sailing. But in the meantime, it's a big pain the butt, and needlessly confusing.

Good thing I carry tokens.

You have to go to Union Station to pay a penalty fee for going into negative, in order to use your card again.

 

[Jonny5]

You have to go to Union Station to pay a penalty fee for going into negative, in order to use your card again.

Yep. If it's negative, you can load money back on to it but it still won't be able to be used again until the "underpayment" status is cleared. Note that you can do this at any PRESTO equipped GO Station, not just Union.

 

[TOareaFan]

just got this email:

To provide more flexibility for customers who use PRESTO and better match their travel patterns, we've made a change. For PRESTO users, the travel window, the length of time during which a GO trip is to be completed, is now 2 1/2 hours rather than the previous four hours. This will allow students and those customers who may be working a shortened work day, going to an appointment, coming into the city during the evening for a concert etc., to take advantage of all the current PRESTO benefits. For more information, please visit the updated Travel Window section on http://www.gotransit.com/public/en/fares/prestocofaresmay1.aspx

 

[Jonny5]

just got this email:

They made a little mistake. The previous limit was two hours, not four.
This is good news. It had to be increased as there are possible GO Train trips (ex: Oshawa to Aldershot) that are more than two hours long.
EDIT: Unless I am misreading what is written here. It is worded very confusingly. I know it was 2 at one point in the past.

 

[vic]

Yep. If it's negative, you can load money back on to it but it still won't be able to be used again until the "underpayment" status is cleared. Note that you can do this at any PRESTO equipped GO Station, not just Union.

OK, then add this to the list of bizarre behaviour. Why doesn't the Presto website tell me this is required when I log in, check my balance, or add money?

Now reading this on the Presto website: "If you run low on cash on your card, but need to get somewhere fast, if your card is registered you can travel one more time and incur a negative balance, as long as you don’t have a zero balance to begin with. You will not be stranded. To use your card to travel again, you will need to clear the negative balance. This must be done at a PRESTO Customer Service Outlet. A small fee will apply."

My current balance is -$2.50. That means it let me travel on the TTC when I had a $0 balance, which it shouldn't have.

And why not let me pay this unknown "small fee" from the balance that I just added yesterday morning? The website also doesn't actually say what/where these "customer service outlets" are.

Next up: Phone call.

 

[Markster]

The wording as it is, comes across as very doublespeak.
The ration of chocolate has been increased from 3 ounces to 2 ounces to offer increased enjoyment.

 

[nfitz]

The wording as it is, comes across as very doublespeak.
The ration of chocolate has been increased from 3 ounces to 2 ounces to offer increased enjoyment.

The problem they are trying to fix is that on GO, if you have a default trip, and you travelled again with 4 hours, you had to use the overide button to make your second trip.

Needless to say, no one actually was aware of this, so it was likely creating problems.

Now if you have a default trip, you have to use the override button if less than 2.5 hours. This is still too confusing ... the real solution is to get rid of the whole concept of "default trip". While there aren't too many cases this will happen (though I did do a 2.6 hour return trip the other day), there are some; particularly for someone shuttling back and forth between stations like Exhibition and Union ... or any other short distance, where you might simply pop on the train to make an errand and return quickly.

 

[Jonny5]

There are too many rules and regulations for using PRESTO on GO that people don't really know about. When they inevitably run afoul of them, it causes all kinds of grief as the card just stops working altogether and the webiste gives no information.

 

[Mapleson]

Why did the province go with Accenture? Why not with a company with more experience with electronic fare systems such as Cubic?

Accenture had the winning bid of the three proposals received from the four short-listed contractors. All the short-listed contractors were Canada-based, because of the municipal half of the framework, so it was really a limited target audience. And of course, whenever you go with the low-ball bid usually corners end up being cut or the experience isn't there.

Those that bid:
• IBM Canada Ltd.
• Accenture Inc.
• CGI Inc.

 

[nfitz]

I had a long talk with someone from GO Transit about Presto - who was trying to rectify a charge problem. They were quite patient and helpful - and I learned a few things from this call.

1) When you call PRESTO, you're not actually talking to Ministry of Transport or Metrolinx. What you are talking to is Accenture. (oops - once I complained to them about the whole thing, and made disparaging comments about hiring Accenture ... I suspect now the person on the other end thought I was doing that deliberately!).

2) They made system changes on Sunday April 4th, so the behaviours before then may not be the same as the behavious after then. (my problem was on the 3rd).

3) If you have a default GO trip set, and you take another GO trip within 2.5 hours of tapping on for your previous trip you must use the Override first - even if you are only taking your default trip (apparently this was 4 hours before Sunday!). And even if you do this, you will have to pay the full-fare - and not the discounted fare (7.5% off for all trips, and higher after trip 35). They said if you are doing this, you should be using tickets, not Presto (though personally I'd borrow my partner's Presto card if I was doing this, and use one in each direction).

4) If you don't have a default GO trip set, and you take another GO trip within 2.5 hours of tapping off (not on) for your previous trip you will have to pay the full-fare - and not the discounted fare.

5) If you have a default GO trip set and you start your GO trip at any station other than either of your default station then you must use the Override button - and tap off at the other end. (oh, I bet this must create confusion!).

I can't speak to the validity of all this (as I haven't used my card since the 3rd). I'll certainly have reason to test that the non-default 2.5 limit is based on tap-off and not tap-on soon, as I do make a frequent trip where I tap-on for my first trip 2:45 hours before I tap-on for my return trip, but the time between tap-off and the next tap-on is 2:15).

I got the impression that this is 2.5 hour issue for frequent trips is something they want to change at some point - but I didn't get the impression it would be immanent. I made a comment that surely this is only going to get worse and worse as GO moves to 30-minute full service - and the response was that it was a work-in-progress and it would be sometime before that happened.

I also commented that it seemed to me that things were going to get really complicated once they get the buses going, and you have someone taking a 3-hour GO trip and then wanting to tap-on to local transit at the end and get a discount. I got the impression they know they have problems, and they are not sure how they are going to deal with all the permutations yet ... and this has delayed the roll-out.

 

[Jonny5]

4) If you don't have a default GO trip set, and you take another GO trip within 2.5 hours of tapping off (not on) for your previous trip you will have to pay the full-fare - and not the discounted fare.

I think this explains the problem I had in post 1057. The question is, why is it like this?

I also commented that it seemed to me that things were going to get really complicated once they get the buses going, and you have someone taking a 3-hour GO trip and then wanting to tap-on to local transit at the end and get a discount. I got the impression they know they have problems, and they are not sure how they are going to deal with all the permutations yet ... and this has delayed the roll-out.

Absolutely. I've had a few conversations with PRESTO staff and anytime I started trying to explain a complex situation they had no idea how it was supposed to work. A while back someone linked to a PRESTO development history from a presentation. It explained that the project started to get seriously bogged down and wasn't producing anything, but then some new project management took over, reorganized things and pushed it out for testing shortly after. It was written in a very self-congratulatory way. I am thinking that what bogged them down was dealing with integrating separate fare structures of 8 different agencies in a way that didn't have a giant list of obscure rules. The new management just said "We'll worry about all that stuff later. Start installing card readers!". Now is later and they are flying by the seat of their pants trying to set up the back end to accomodate some very complex potential travel patterns.

 

[GraphicMatt]

The fact that there's an 'override' button at all damns this thing to failure. Simplify: Tap on/tap off. That's it. If that doesn't work with existing fare structures, then change the fare structures.

 

[nfitz]

I think this explains the problem I had in post 1057. The question is, why is it like this?

Ah so it does. I'll link to that post because post numbering can change if someone deletes an old post.

Yes, that's what I was looking at two ... a 32¢ refund - though they refunded the entire trip as a goodwill gesture.

As in terms of why ... good question. The answer is likely that they haven't put programming in to handle the situation properly, so they are kludging it for the time being, and simply making the rule that you pay more if less than 2.5 hours. What is weird is that it does manage to figure out it's a different trip, but doesn't have the ability to charge the discount - probably need yet another pile of nested IF statements somewhere they don't have them.

There's probably a couple of ways to solve it. One would be to get rid of this whole 7.5% discount structure on adult tickets. Make the base price the 7.5% discounted rate ... and then you only have to apply the discount after 35 trips ... though I guess it would still break then.

Another is to add the necessary code to handle the situation properly ... though I'm sure everytime you do that, you break two other things.

And finally you can simplify the fare structure. For example, if they made the rule that your second trip is free if less than 2.5 hours after you tapped out ... then the problem goes away ... so a free return trip, or if you happened to go somewhere else, then you pay to that station, instead of the station in the middle.

The person who phoned me from GO seemed well versed in the permutations and the issues. And was quite well aware that the way it behaved didn't really make sense, but this is where they were at, at the moment. (it's so much easier to discuss this with someone who is willing to discuss it, without trying to justify why it's fine the way it is!). The PRESTO (aka Accenture) staff are likely not as easy to talk like this!

I do think that they will have to make everyone tap off on GO ... and get rid of the Override before this thing is running smoothly.