steveintoronto
Superstar
Even after Ontario coming under harsh criticism from the Auditor for the prior Accenture fiasco.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/new...re-card-had-poor-track-record/article6551526/
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hw621
Senior Member
Google Pay now supports transit passes and tickets
Starting first with the Las Vegas Monorail.
When Android Pay was re-branded as Google Pay, it didn't come with any new features. The app was given an updated look with a slightly tweaked UI, but that was about it. However, today Google's taking advantage of the new name by adding support for transit passes and tickets.
Starting first with the Las Vegas Monorail, you'll be able to add tickets right to the Google Pay app on your phone and travel around the Las Vegas Strip without having to worry about using your debit/credit card.
Tickets live alongside your other cards in Google Pay.
To make this work, all you have to do is buy a ticket or pass from the Las Vegas Monorail website, save it to your phone, and then hold your phone to the NFC terminal at the fare gate. You don't have to open the Google Pay app, as it'll automatically know to bring up your pass when it makes the connection.
Once the ticket is added to Google Pay, you'll see locations it's accepted at, where the nearest station is, and a breakdown of your recent trips.
The Las Vegas Monorail is the first travel/transit company to adopt this new feature, but it's expected that more will follow suit shortly. Obviously the big requirement from the start is having a transit system that accepts NFC, but after that it should be a simple transition to allowing the passes to be virtualized on phones.
If you live in (or more likely, visit) Las Vegas, is this something you'd use?
Starting first with the Las Vegas Monorail.
When Android Pay was re-branded as Google Pay, it didn't come with any new features. The app was given an updated look with a slightly tweaked UI, but that was about it. However, today Google's taking advantage of the new name by adding support for transit passes and tickets.
Starting first with the Las Vegas Monorail, you'll be able to add tickets right to the Google Pay app on your phone and travel around the Las Vegas Strip without having to worry about using your debit/credit card.
Tickets live alongside your other cards in Google Pay.
To make this work, all you have to do is buy a ticket or pass from the Las Vegas Monorail website, save it to your phone, and then hold your phone to the NFC terminal at the fare gate. You don't have to open the Google Pay app, as it'll automatically know to bring up your pass when it makes the connection.
Once the ticket is added to Google Pay, you'll see locations it's accepted at, where the nearest station is, and a breakdown of your recent trips.
The Las Vegas Monorail is the first travel/transit company to adopt this new feature, but it's expected that more will follow suit shortly. Obviously the big requirement from the start is having a transit system that accepts NFC, but after that it should be a simple transition to allowing the passes to be virtualized on phones.
If you live in (or more likely, visit) Las Vegas, is this something you'd use?
rbt
Senior Member
If it went to the airport, in a heartbeat. The poor route isn't really the fault of the payment mechanism though.
cirez
New Member
Google Pay now supports transit passes and tickets
Starting first with the Las Vegas Monorail.
When Android Pay was re-branded as Google Pay, it didn't come with any new features. The app was given an updated look with a slightly tweaked UI, but that was about it. However, today Google's taking advantage of the new name by adding support for transit passes and tickets.
Starting first with the Las Vegas Monorail, you'll be able to add tickets right to the Google Pay app on your phone and travel around the Las Vegas Strip without having to worry about using your debit/credit card.
Tickets live alongside your other cards in Google Pay.
To make this work, all you have to do is buy a ticket or pass from the Las Vegas Monorail website, save it to your phone, and then hold your phone to the NFC terminal at the fare gate. You don't have to open the Google Pay app, as it'll automatically know to bring up your pass when it makes the connection.
Once the ticket is added to Google Pay, you'll see locations it's accepted at, where the nearest station is, and a breakdown of your recent trips.
The Las Vegas Monorail is the first travel/transit company to adopt this new feature, but it's expected that more will follow suit shortly. Obviously the big requirement from the start is having a transit system that accepts NFC, but after that it should be a simple transition to allowing the passes to be virtualized on phones.
If you live in (or more likely, visit) Las Vegas, is this something you'd use?
This is awesome. I would definitely use this if it was supported in Toronto. Could presto ever support this? Do the presto readers support NFC?
yrt+viva=1system
Senior Member
Two new Presto vending machines have been installed at Finch as of this morning. I didn't have time to take a photo but it's unique to see the new machines, the existing Presto machines and the TTC metropass machine all lined up along the wall.
Leo_Chan
Senior Member
Ah yes, the wall of fare vending machines. Where people line up and block the entire hallway and it's 3 people thick, not just 1.
nfitz
Superstar
Opus is a frigging disaster. I was in Vendome metro at around 8:30 AM on Monday ... no fare vending machines. Everyone lining up for one clerk. Buy a paper ticket, easy, $3.25. Buy a two-ride Opus card ... transaction nightmare ... tap payment card ... and wait while the vendor has to press a few buttons, and then charge the Opus card - which doesn't seem particularly fast.
This is progress?
And good grief Montreal ... big suitcase at Vendome, one of the key interchange stations in town ... and no fucking elevator? Or escalator even? It has to just about be the easiest station to retrofit elevators into.
First time I'd travelled with this suitcase (or any suitcase so large) in near 15 years - in fact, I found paperwork in the suitcase from being in Seoul 14 years ago. Well, if it was easy enough to get around Seoul with this suitcase 14 years ago, Montreal should be a breeze.
I never want to frigging here anyone in Toronto complain about inaccessible transit again. Even Bonaventure - which had about the only elevator I ever saw ... couldn't use it, as the signage on the accessible fare gate didn't mention the elevator only goes to the platform on one side, and there's no way to get to the other side, without down a flight of stairs, and over a bizarrely placed bridge, without leaving the fare-paid area, and crossing the mezzanine to a different entrance. Would have a sign killed you Montrael?
What a shithole city for accessible transit!
aquateam
Active Member
If you were there a bit earlier you might have seen me
As long as there is a single station attendant, there will be lineups. I don't see how it would be any different with Presto, since occasional users still wouldn't have a card and would need to pay somehow, presumably by buying a fare medium from an attendant.
If you exited Vendome to de Maisonneuve and looked right, you would see construction hoarding. The STM is building an entirely new station structure to render the metro station (and ARTM station, and hospital) accessible: preparatory work started in the fall and construction is soon to begin.
Here are some pretty renderings:
One caveat though - early designs for this were "Bonaventure-like" in the sheer number of stairs, elevators, up and down movements necessary to transfer from one platform to another. I haven't taken a close enough look to see if the final design is improved.
Montreal definitely isn't great for accessibility. I've been shocked how there would be construction work at stations for years at a time, without even installing elevators. At one point, I know the STM was retrofitting its stations at a rate that the entire system wouldn't be accessible until 2080. All that federal stimulus funding has helped speed the plan along. Although it's a bit disappointing that they waited for a federal handout to make the system accessible, when Toronto originally had a plan paid by itself.
rankman
New Member
And here I thought Montreal was a progressive socialist paradise.
Andy T
Active Member
Presto and Shoppers is currently having a promotion where if you load a TTC pass on your Presto, you get $10 off the cost of the pass.
nfitz
Superstar
I'm not sure how you get less lineups once you get rid of the last attendant. I didn't think they even had them anymore, as until last weekend, my only recent entrances had been at Radisson on a weekend, with no attendants - but available machines.
I couldn't see any ticket vending machines at Vendome (not to say there weren't any, but I didn't see them).
That they are only just starting, over 20 years after planning for the hospital started, and nearly 4 years since it started opening, is beyond shameful. If nothing else, the accessible lobby in Montreal seems to be a lot weaker than that in Toronto.
Cool! I'd heard there were plans - but we all know what that means in Montreal.
What's that, the foot of Vendome Avenue? For some reason I thought it was closer to St. Catherine. Ah, well that would provide accessibility for the bus platforms then too, I'd assumed. I thought they had a separate structure coming, that wouldn't have provided accessibility to the bus platforms.
Which makes me wonder why accessibility activists are so weak in Montreal compared to Toronto.
Taking a large suitcase from Central Station to metro Bonaventure and then to Vendome was eye-opening. The shear number of unnecessary doors. And really - they built that new connection from the passageway into Bonaventure - with short runs of stairs, and no ramp!?! In the 1990s!?! The new elevators in Bonavanture station (at least new since last time I was there) looked good. But I'm not sure how you are supposed to get to them in a wheelchair. Clearly not from the new building on de la Gauchetière . Or Place Bonaventure ...
And then at Vendome, I get to the turnstiles - and there's not even one a wheelchair would fit through (at least out to the bus I was using). But I could push the suitcase, under the turnstile ... LOL.
Free Prestocard!
hw621
Senior Member
Last week when I tapped at one of the unstaffed entrance at Bay station, none of the gates worked. There was a red cross and the gates would not open. I had to go to another entrance and went in through ANOTHER failed gate (this one was already open). Later on I surprisingly found out they actually deducted my fare when I first tapped. So be careful if you tap on a disabled gate you may be deducted the fare, although you cannot go through.
steveintoronto
Superstar
That is the second instance in this thread where I see that has happened. I noted this last time, will again: Any well designed hardware, especially mechanical where it interfaces with a user, it's very simple and effective, in fact, done most of the time, where a 'confirmation' sensor signals back to the control mechanism as to whether the sent command has successfully completed or not. Systems with this servo loop typically go into repetitive mode until a sensor is finally tripped, or only a limited number of attempts are made before a microprocessor or the software desists the command.
Only on receiving that 'confirmation of completed function' should your card be charged for it.
Someone's not on the ball with this....it's a damn good thing *most* cars and airplanes aren't designed this poorly. You'd think the term "interlock" would ring a bell with transit orgs running rail systems, but alas...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlock_(engineering)
hw621
Senior Member
You think Presto has known about this defect? Should I tell them?
steveintoronto
Superstar
Of course they know about it. The question is whether or not a 'revision' is included in the contract warranty. The motors are, and it's in the 'open door' command drive mechanism that this shortcoming is appearing. There probably, if not inevitably, is a servo sensor, but apparently it's actuated from the motor, not the door paddles.
There has to be an optical sensor (witness the umbrella trick, where some patrons were reaching over to block the optical path to open or keep open the paddles). THAT is where the confirmation of 'charge fare' should be coming from.
I'm not intimately familiar with their mechanism, but a mechanical and electrical schematic and block diagram would quickly answer your question 100%.
Addendum: There's a fair (fare?) amount on-line of this happening. Not surprisingly, I can see it being a design challenge for almost any system or manufacturer to get it right, but my opinion, without having technical details in front of me, is still that the card details should be held in a short term cache, and only charged once a 'completed transaction' is confirmed from an exiting machine sensor, not a motor/solenoid send:
http://secondavenuesagas.com/2009/09/18/are-turnstiles-swiping-metrocard-money/
Read the comments.
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