The TTC is well into its rollout of the provincially-mandated fare card, Presto, across the transit system. Like any new piece of technology there are teething problems, but both the TTC and Metrolinx seem bent on making the implementation as difficult and unfriendly as possible.
As the implementation now stands:
- All streetcars have Presto readers at all entrances, although their reliability leaves much to be desired.
- About half of the bus fleet has readers, and this work is expected to complete by year end.
- Many subway stations have at least a few turnstiles with Presto readers. This too will complete by year end, but installation of new fare gates will continue well into 2017.
- Some stations have machines to allow riders to reload their Presto cards, but these are scattered around town, and their placement (inside or outside of the fare control area) is inconsistent.
- Riders can pay the equivalent of token or ticket fares with Presto at adult and senior rates, but the ability use Presto for all trips is hampered by whether readers are available throughout a journey.
- Metropass users cannot use Presto because the monthly pass function has not yet been implemented, and in any event would be worthless unless all of one’s travel were confined to Presto-enabled vehicles and stations.
The implementation of a new fare collection system, bringing the TTC into at least the latter part of the 20th century, presents a chance to “get it right”, to promote a more attractive fare structure and transit in general. This opportunity has been lost through a combination of factors at the TTC, city and provincial levels. What should be a “good news” story is one of uncertainty and complaints, with more to come.
The Technology
Without question, any transit system that has converted its fare collection from a manual system to an automated one did not achieve this overnight, and perfection in a rollout is a lot to ask. That said, Presto is supposed to be mature enough that we should not be worrying about the basics. Card readers should work well enough that encountering one that’s out of service should be rare, not a common occurrence. Fare calculations should be accurate, theoretically an easy task in such a simple system of Toronto that is bereft of zones and transfer charges. Support systems such as reloading fare value onto the card should have a close to 100% up time, not be down for entire weekends for back-end software upgrades.
Retrofitting the technology to vehicles requires wiring for power and control systems, as well as providing an interface to the on-board GPS units. That is comparatively simple beside the work needed in a subway station where running wiring for power and control circuits to fare gates requires new conduits in concrete floors and, in some cases, upgraded power distribution within the station. The TTC has chosen to use this opportunity to install new fare gates, and this makes the work more complex than simply fitting a Presto reader onto existing turnstiles. More about those gates later.
The central point here is that this is basically a construction project that may take time, but once done should allow the new technology’s installation and operation. That last step, actually “turning on” the new machines, depends on technology working “out of the box”. This has not been the case either with Presto readers or with the new gates. Responsibility for maintaining this equipment is supposed to lie with both Presto (part of Metrolinx) and with the gate vendor, but the TTC is doing this work for the time being. It is unclear how many workmen will have to appear on site when a Presto-enable gate becomes cantankerous and vendors point at each other in the classic “not my problem” standoff.
This is a huge scale-up for the Presto organization both in terms of the number of devices it must support, and the volume of transactions it will have to process. Because Presto has limited attractiveness to TTC riders, it accounts for a very small proportion of fares collected. In May 2016, of the 41.3 million trips taken on the TTC, Presto was used for 1.72 million, or 4.2%. Whether Presto is capable of scaling up to the demand represented by even half of all TTC trips remains to be seen.
Opportunities for a New Fare Structure
When a new fare card was first proposed for the TTC, a big selling point was supposed to be that new and improved fare options could be provided. These include:
- Shifting to timed fares where an initial “tap” buys two hours of travel with no restrictions on stopovers and transfers.
- Use of time-of-day based fares with lower charges (or longer travel per tap) at off peak hours.
- Implementation of equivalent to Day Pass pricing with the total charges in one 24 hour period capped at the value of a pass no matter how many trips were taken, with similar options on a weekly and monthly basis. Riders would not have to decide in advance whether buying a pass was worthwhile.
- Interagency fares so that the boundaries between the TTC and neighbouring GTA systems could be simplified or eliminated.
Changing the fare structure will almost certainly have a cost because anything that makes travel cheaper for some riders is unlikely to be made up for with increased revenue through greater use. Bumping other riders’ fares to pay for this would be unpopular, and there would inevitably be cries about favouritism and hardship unless the overall change could be seen to be beneficial to most riders.
The TTC has considered a move to timed fares, a function Presto already supports in other parts of the GTA and which has always been available to the TTC, but the penny-pinching politicians who would have to fund this change are more worried about precious tax dollars than improving transit’s attractiveness and usability. The estimated cost for this option is about $20m/year, although there is good reason to suspect that this number has been padded. TTC Chair Josh Colle, and by implication Mayor Tory, did not want to spend this amount as part of the 2016 budget package, and in the constrained environment of the 2017 budget, this is even less likely.
Timed fares have two important benefits. First, they completely eliminate the complex rules about transfers and the need for the Presto software to figure out what is a “legal” transfer. This process is fraught with potential errors and overcharging through a combination of GPS errors (did you actually transfer where Presto thinks you did), and from ad hoc routings for short turns and diversions. One cannot have a transit system where the rule is “always tap on” followed by a list of exceptions most riders cannot be expected to know. The TTC will provide a refund for riders who are overcharged (assuming that they even notice and go to the exercise of retrieving their trip logs online), but even a 1% error rate translates to a huge number of complaints.
The second benefit is linked to the convenience of using the TTC as a service without worry about marginal cost for short hops, something passholders already know about. A common complaint among poverty advocates is that “trip chaining” is very expensive for riders who must do several errands in one set of trips that by TTC rules cost a separate fare for each leg of the journey. Too much of the underlying philosophy of fares on the TTC (and on GO) is based on the “commuter” trip, not on the frequent user who travels the TTC the same way motorists or cyclists might journey from one stop to another.
Fare capping is already used on GO Transit where beyond a certain number of trips per month, travel is free. The ability to do this for the TTC and to implement it for Day Passes already exists in Presto, and the Day Pass conversion was originally expected to occur midway through 2016. It might be held up because of the limited availability of Presto on bus routes, but the reason might also be that any extension of a “pass” is opposed by some on the TTC Board and in management who regard any pass as “lost revenue” rather than as an inducement for greater system use. The idea that transit systems exist to encourage more riding is utterly lost on those who look only at the “bottom line”, not at the wider benefits transit confers.
If automatic capping is implemented for monthly passes, the number of riders gaining a reduced fare may actually go up because there will no longer be an up-front decision about whether a pass will pay its way. This would increase the proportion of equivalent-to-pass riders to an even higher level (now well over 50% of all trips) than it is today. This phenomenon and the effect of other fare options has not even been discussed in any public TTC report.
Interagency fares are, at least for Queen’s Park and Metrolinx, the holy grail of a new fare system. Riders (and voters) in the 905 will get a simpler and maybe even a cheaper ride into Toronto. However, nobody wants to pay for this, least of all the provincial government where the focus is more on how to get municipalities to pay more for transit. Among the outstanding issues are:
- Will Presto confer a unified, cheaper fare for travel on multiple agencies, including GO Transit, or will it simply be a way to automate the collection of existing fares on all systems?
- If some type of “co-fare” is extended to 905-416 trips on local carriers (e.g. York Region Transit/VIVA to TTC), who pays the extra subsidy?
- Will a “co-fare” be provided between GO and the TTC as it is for GO and the 905-based carriers?
- How will “Smart Track” and a “TTC” level fare within the 416 be implemented on GO Transit’s rail corridors? By extension, exactly what is meant by a “TTC fare”?
The Dark Side of “Opportunities”
A new fare structure may bring not just “better” fares for riders, but could also include lurking fare increases that have not been discussed as publicly as they should be.
On the TTC, some or all of the discount metropass schemes could disappear under the rationale that the savings through subscription and automatic bank withdrawals would apply to all buyers of “passes” on Presto, and there is no longer a reason to give subscribers one month free out of twelve. Never mind that this is a great loyalty and marketing tool. There are more than a few at the TTC who see this as a chance to get more revenue from this group of customers. (Full disclosure: I have been a Monthly Discount Plan user since this was introduced.) Of course a “twelfth month free” could also be implemented as an automatic loyalty reward just like daily or monthly fare capping. All that is needed is the policy decision, plus the software change needed to implement it.
A major problem for TTC Presto riders today is that there are limited locations where riders entitled to discount fares (seniors, students) can have their Presto accounts set up to charge concession rates. This is supposed to expand with the full TTC rollout, but details are scarce. If you can’t get your card set up for a discount, you pay full fare needlessly, or you stay with “legacy” fares as long as they are available.
The stealthiest of the possible fare change proposals is a move to some form of distance-based fares. Metrolinx has been pushing the idea as part of its “Regional Fare Integration Strategy” for a few years, and shows little sign of relenting on this for the TTC. “Rapid transit” fares would be based on distance travelled, and a fare from, say, Scarborough Town Centre to downtown would cost considerably more than it does today with likely a decrease in short distance fares. Metrolinx is quite selective in its description of “rapid transit” and initially this was only the GO rail and TTC subway networks. However, the description has more recently appeared for future LRT lines, although there is no mention of whether BRT services such as VIVA would fall into this category.
The TTC has assisted with making fare by distance possible because its new fare gates can have readers on both sides so that a “tap out” is needed to leave a station. This has very severe implications for the operation of a system that is designed around a free transfer and full integration between surface and subway routes. The Metrolinx study is still underway thanks to a growing realization at the political level that fare by distance is a land mine just waiting to go off under an already unpopular provincial government.
Presto implementation is expected to add $30 million to the TTC’s costs for 2017 because the savings of the new system will not be fully realized while old and new co-exist. That’s roughly the equivalent of a 1% property tax increase if paid through subsidy, or about a dime on the basic adult fare. In the medium term, Presto fees to the TTC are limited by contract, but we know from other cities that a big jump faces the TTC down the road because Presto simply is not self-sustaining on its current revenue stream. Queen’s Park does not want to indirectly subsidize local transit through its mandatory fare technology, and will claw back gas tax transfers from any municipality that does not comply.
A Marketing Failure: Bad News is Bad for Business
In my role as a “transit advocate”, I get questions both on this site and in person about how Presto will work. People ask me what is happening to the fare structure, and thanks to indecisiveness at TTC, I have to answer “I don’t know”. For a system that is supposed to be widely available in a few months, the absence of details is very troubling.
Even worse is the sense that both the TTC and Metrolinx are setting up for an environment where the transit rider (existing and potential) is a distant secondary consideration to avoidance of new costs and gerrymandering the fare system for political benefit.
The absence of public debate about fare structures and related funding challenges shows that none of the players wants to see these issues brought out in the open.
“Good news” is not made by Ministerial and Mayoral pontification, self-congratulatory statements devoid of actual benefit to transit users. “Lower taxes” is a meaningless term if the cost of using a service those taxes should pay for goes up.
Presto could have been a chance for major improvements in how riders view transit. The convenience of passes could be extended to a wider range of customers. Transfer rules that deter use of transit for short hops could be eliminated. The transit network could be seen as one unit (“seamless” is the favourite term) where fares would not create artificial barriers. New technology could be an improvement over tokens and paper, not as a move to a less reliable and inconvenient payment system.
That’s what a city, a region, a province committed to really selling transit as “the better way” would do. Instead, we get unreliable technology, and a refusal to address the need for extra subsidy to pay for restructuring.
A chance to promote transit with some truly “good news” has been wasted because governments are too cheap to pay for it.
Steve Munro 
The sad thing about the failure to implement the day pass option is that no one seems to be considering the cost savings of eliminating the infrastructure for the paper day pass in addition to the added convenience for riders. All you need to do is implement a multi-tap option for more than one rider with Presto readers and start selling preloaded Presto cards with a day’s worth of fares.
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I have adopted Presto. I do like not having to run out for tokens all the time. Here’s the big problem, especially when they decide to stop selling tokens. If you lose you card, as I did, you will learn that it takes 24 hours to cancel the card, meaning if someone picks it up they can use it all they want – money permitting – for 24 hours. Without tokens we’ll be forced to pay exorbitantly high cash fares waiting for the new card.
Going to the locations I’ve read is an exercise in frustration trying to find a card (The Star – Keenan July 16 “Today’s TTC service offers blah, sweat and tears”) so I have to order online. I did see that someone had a great time riding on my card for 24 hours.
What kind of card that deals with money cannot stop its function right away in order for it someone else not to steal the funds? This seems so obvious. Then for a second I thought I lost it again – but misplaced it. Fortunately the website functionality is so bad it was impossible to cancel on line, and I ended up remembering where I put it. I can put up with a lot, but this 24 window where anyone can ride on the owners dime is not acceptable and will be a huge problem once everyone is forced to use the card.
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I had thought Presto would at least make it easier to travel on TTC services in York region, only to find out that as it is currently set up, the TTC’s presto readers cannot register more than one tap on the same card per trip per vehicle. So even though the 160 bus happened to be Presto-enabled, I was supposed to pay the extra fare in cash…
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Presto’s rollout in Ottawa, supervised by the TTC, was only mildly problematic; in part because OC Transpo insisted on a slightly different application of the software for God knows what reasons. However, within a year, most Ottawans using public transit switched to the card and find it very convenient. Why the TTC does not pass on any information about what it learned in Ottawa, and how the system works is somewhat baffling, and suggests to me the usual communications incompetence. With regards to that, I don’t know if that problem will ever be solved.
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Not “may” go up, but “will” go up. There are plenty of people who use the TTC and fall into the realm of saving money in their monthly budget by using the Metropass, but who do not purchase a Metropass simply because their monthly budget provides them with a weekly cash flow that cannot handle the purchase of a Metropass in one fell swoop at the start of a month.
It’s easy to just say, “These people need to learn to budget their money.” The reality is, in order to do so, they will have to spend a month of putting away a weekly allotment towards the following month’s transit cost, IN ADDITION to their current weekly cost of tokens. That money has to come from somewhere. Maybe they should just give up eating on weekends – after all, it’s just for one month. Sometimes, greener pastures on the other side of a mountain can only be obtained by a journey that some of us cannot endure.
Maybe the TTC board is hoping for a small benefit to this. Where I am in York Region, I used to commute on a 15-minute bus ride that was heavily travelled by students. YRT still has tickets and paper passes available, so about half the students pay that way. Of the half using Presto, about one out of every five are using a card not set up for student fare (the reader makes a different sound when tapped by a concession-enabled card).
We keep hearing from people who say that transit (or most government services, for that matter) should be “run more like a business”. In some areas, this is true, but it isn’t universal. The trouble is, the “run more like a business” mentality tends to focus on the areas where that simply doesn’t work, while at the same time the marketing of a new fare media that should be “run more like a business” isn’t.
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Steve, do you know if the TTC will be readjusting the timing of the gates on the new turnstiles? I’ve experienced that there is usually a 2 second delay from swiping a Metropass/ tapping with Presto which would mean having to stop and wait for the gate to open. I wouldn’t be surprised if there have been a few broken gates already from riders expecting the gates to open instantaneously. I hope the TTC readjusts them or there’s going to be problems at the far busier stations like Finch, Bloor, Union…etc.
Steve: Don’t know, but will ask when I connect with the right people.
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Aside from your “big picture” comments, most of which I agree with I have a few niggling little things that endlessly annoy me. I have travelled on systems in Europe and Asia that use cards similar to Presto but I believe that all of them show me the remaining balance on the card when I tap in – even GO does – but not the TTC. I have to find a top-up machine machine in the station to do that, and a lot of the time when I can find the machine, it is not working.
Steve: According to the TTC, a card balance readout is not “accessible” because it cannot be seen by the blind, and a voice announcement would be a privacy issue. I am not making this up.
Speaking of top-up machines why does Union Station (GO, not the TTC) have only two hidden away at the back of the York Concourse?
Speaking of GO why do the people in the ticket booths tell you that you always have to both “tap in” and “tap out” when you use the card, including for the TTC and Union Express? Do these organizations ever talk to each other?
Steve: A tap out for UPX is needed if you are taking a trip other than Union to Pearson so that the system knows which short ride you actually used. Someone tapping on at Bloor, for example, might be going to Union or to the airport. As for the TTC, yes, they are just misinformed.
Why does it take two weeks or more to replace a lost (or stolen) Presto card when you make the report and order on line but only a few minutes at a ticket booth in Union Station – once you get to the booth?
As I said, little stuff, but it is the endless little stuff that tells me that this is a good deal less than a professional project. It seems more like someone’s hobby – with our money.
Steve: As I said in the article, too much of Presto seems built on a comparatively small commuter-based system where most riders have “standard” trips. Scaling up to the complexity of a regional system, much less thinking through basic policy and customer service issues, those are quite different issues not helped by the lack of a public discussion of the options and implications.
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The only question I have, why is there still no presto app on our smartphones to pay for our trips?
Steve: Smart phone support for Presto is supposed to be coming some time in 2017 (later than sooner, I believe), but Metrolinx has not yet announced a date.
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Presto seems to me to be a classic example of product development in which the daily user experience takes a distant back-seat to simply “checking the boxes” of particular requested features. Presto does what it needs to do, but in a convoluted, backward, and endlessly frustrating way.
Even complaining about Presto is painful experience — the Presto web feedback form rejects comments that have any punctuation marks other than a period.
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It’s been three months of free entry since the old turnstiles were removed at North York Centre station and still no sign of the new ones, would the private sector be just as incompetent and throw revenue away?
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The setting of a PRESTO card for a concession fare is described as:
Well, that’s not very convenient is it! However, this can also be done at any GO Station (and I think UP Express) – I did it at Union, though I seldom use GO. I wrote to the TTC to suggest that at least they should note this on their ‘helpful hints” web-page (more like dire warnings!) but ….
Steve: Huge chunks of the city are remote both from GO stations and 1900 Yonge Street.
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Let me note two more problems with Presto. The most serious problem, in my opinion, is the decision strip riders of the ability to travel anonymously. The top up machines do not accept cash. Topping up can only be done using your bank card, or credit card. The token vending machines accept cash. Why can’t the Presto top-up machines also accept cash?
I have seen machines that dispense a brand new Presto card, at Union Station, for $20. But $6 is soaked up by card’s one time fee. Like all other cards, they can’t be recharged without a payment method that requires registration.
No, I am not a tin-foil hat guy, or a criminal, who feels a need to travel anonymously. I just think the decision to strip riders of the ability to to travel without being tracked should have been the subject of a public debate.
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The second problem with Presto I was going to add is connected with registration. A couple of months ago, when I was testing out my card, drivers were issuing a transfer, every time a rider used their presto card. They implied it was always necessary, when boarding a second vehicle, even a Presto enable vehicle. So, I tried tapping it on the second streetcar, planning to query my record, when I got home.
The site wouldn’t let me query my usage, even though the site said this was possible. I knew I registered.
It took some time, but I eventually learned that — for some reason — my registration of my card was nullified, because I hadn’t then used the card within thirty days.
Why the heck would implementers put this restriction on the card? And, having made this decision, why the heck didn’t the online documentation explain why my card wasn’t letting me access all the online query services?
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Just a thought on the rollout here Steve..
What happens if the system is not ready for Presto come January? The Metropasses are due to end as a physical medium in December but as you said fare gate construction will continue well into 2017 and as of now Presto is hit or miss across the system.
I wonder if the TTC has a Plan B because lord knows if people cannot get a monthly pass be it on Presto, card or rune stone there will be major criticism of the TTC. God I hope they have a fallback plan should Presto not go according to plan in January.
Steve: The TTC has talked of Metropasses lasting until June if only to allow for a gradual changeover. Conflicting info is coming out, as usual, thanks to the lack of a clear public announcement.
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Steve again you hit it on the nail. Governments refuse to pay for transit and it explains many issues with Presto implementation.
A commenter mentioned that implementing the daypass functionality would eliminate the cost of the paper pass and that Presto is cheaper. The problem is, and it’s somewhat linked to the governments refusing to pay, is that the paper system is really cheaper and Presto is more expensive.
A big part of the problem is that someone somewhere sold Presto to politicians on the basis that it would be cheaper than the current paper based system of tickets and passes (and tokens for the TTC). That’s not true and will never be. Right now we are all stuck because the promised savings have not and will never appear.
As much as I am opposed to switching to Presto am really disappointed that we are missing out on the few things that only a computer system could do. And it’s really about governments refusing to fund transit properly. Presto is here and not going away and we need it to work. Having said that who knows what the lawsuit from the city of Ottawa will bring.
Regarding Ottawa, it’s not the TTC but Metrolinx who was involved and since they fought OC Transpo every step of the way I doubt they have learned anything. It took threats of lawsuits and interventions by senior politicians to make Metrolinx and its various contractors understand that we needed a French language option and that we needed functionality with the STO. A Metrolinx VP told a city council meeting that going forward it was important for OC Transpo to cooperate more with Ontario systems instead of Quebec systems! Forgetting we have to go to jobs in Gatineau and not in Markham!!!
With that kind of attitude it should not be surprising that it’s so difficult to implement in Toronto.
Steve: Presto is a typical Ontario technology project that was run by a more or less independent group within the Ministry of Transportation and Accenture, a favourite IT consultant. The person in charge of the project (now remvoved) was making more than than the Premier. Now it’s got Ontario’s name and reputation all over it, and the cost is far higher than expected. Surprise!
As for lack of French support, considering that everything Metrolinx does has to appear in both official languages, the idea that they wouldn’t build that into Presto is laughable.
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I’m predicting the TTC will be dragged kicking and screaming to a 2 hour fare. All the problems with their quaint transfer rules make it inevitable.
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I been using Presto for a couple of years now. I don’t have any major complaint with it. Tap works with your wallet. If you’re tall enough, you can simple tap through your pocket too. I have a few things to share.
For GO Transit, Presto has been around for years now. Most people have gotten used to it. For new users, there is a number of problems. If you forget to tap off, you get charged a super expensive fare. If the Presto reader fails on the GO bus or the bus breaks down, that can happen as well with no fault of your own. GO buses and many GTA transit operators only download/upload trips, new balance loads, lost cards at the garage. This is why it takes 24 hours for your card to stop working when report a lost card. It’s also easier to load or set concessions at a GO station than anywhere on the TTC.
Now for the TTC. Presto is semi-usage on the TTC if you’re on autoload (the feature that allows one to top up the card from a credit card once the card has less than your desired amount). If you don’t setup autoload, you can easily run into a negative balance because you forgot to load up or because your transfer failed and you have no idea at all. Presto with the TTC requires the user to constantly keep checking their account activities for additional charges. One can check their last trip on a reload machine but only after the vehicle has uploaded information onto the Presto server. This means if you tap on a streetcar in the last 5 minutes, it will show your balance but not your last location. Pathetic? I think so.
Reader functionality: On the bus network one would often find a non-functional reader. Sometimes it’s a red screen and others Windows CE embedded desktop appears. Sometimes it’s just one reader that crashed. Apparently their software isn’t that reliable on buses. One major complaint is if the operator shuts down the bus (TTC has an 1 minute idling policy), the reader system would need 3-5 minutes to initialize. So if you live by the terminal of your route, you have a well nigh chance of facing a reader that would be initializing. This will become a major problem if a bus lays over at the subway station and riders have to tap on to validate their transfer on the card next year on a non-functional reader.
As for transfers, it’s impossible to figure out if your transfer worked or not. There is no way to figure out if you paid a new fare making Presto on the TTC a very difficult choice. Get a transfer and avoid the hassle is the best idea right now. That said, one can actually pick up a (paper) transfer on every vehicle transfer. Shhhh.. I’m not suggestion anything illegal here. If TTC don’t figure out how to indicate a successful transfer, this will be a disaster for both the user and the TTC.
Steve you did mention something about using the online logs to prove your trip in the case that you’re double charged. This might not be 100% successful. There are cases that a bus fails to upload trip information to the service because the reader crashed, bus broken down or whatever reason. A successful tap doesn’t mean it’s a successful entry on your online log. Good luck proving your trip with missing info.
I believe TTC has done the right thing (for once) by having the vehicle upload trip info within every 30 minutes or so. I’m not sure about downloads yet. I hope this means manual online top up and lost cards can be disabled within half an hour on the entire TTC system.
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Well about that. Metrolinx likes to describes itself as an agency of the government of Ontario. However it is a Crown corporation. Which means it’s not subject to the French language services act.
After that episode in Ottawa, then Minister Meilleur was not happy and had an amendment to the Metrolinx act that required it to provide services in French. Mind you, it’s still not under the purview of the FLS or bill 8. No, it has its own provisions meaning the commissioner of French language services cannot investigate or say anything. Which makes sense as that would smack of accountability.
And being a Crown Corp as opposed to an agency explains how they get away with not providing some info to the public or legislature. They are legally not obligated or sometimes not allowed! How convenient.
Anyway the excuse they gave us about that was that there were so many issues with the software that they asked to rollout first in English (they said well every francophone is bilingual) and French later. The mayor didn’t buy it to his credit saying that we will never get it in French later otherwise.
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This makes me wonder why the TTC hasn’t closed all washrooms until such time that ALL stalls are accessible.
YRT seems to handle this: the terminal shows your balances (both how much cash remains, and how much time is on your current tap). If one is visually impaired, they have a revolutionary method: ask the operator.
Furthermore, as a user of Presto for some time, the TTC didn’t have an issue with the original readers on station turn styles that displayed balance when tapped.
Steve: Consistency of explanations in not a noted virtue at the TTC.
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Any “tracking” of use of the card is only good as evidence against someone if it is equally good as exculpatory evidence. The only thing that is tracked is where the card itself was tapped, not who was holding it at the time.
Furthermore, YRT used to “track” where each tap was in terms of actual location, but found this to be terribly wrong most of the time since moving readers never used the GPS system that announces stops on the bus. Now the only thing tracked is the zone number where the vehicle was when tapped.
But, hey, if you want to travel incognito, the price is a little inconvenience such as having to top up at a location that takes cash, not being able to recover the balance of a lost card, and not getting the tax credit. Only that first one is a real inconvenience for someone going to the trouble of travelling incognito (who, I’m sure takes an hour to disguise themselves from all the CCTV out there). One going to that level of trouble would never lose a card, and they would be damned to claim their transit usage on a government form, that is if they file a tax return at all.
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The reason is simple, even if they don’t make it clear. When one does something that has to “get” to one’s card, it can only do so when one taps a device, either for paying a fare, or for checking a balance. This means that the information must be sent to EVERY reader in the system, because there is no knowing which one you will use to tap.
Readers don’t have infinite memory, and with the many users in the system there can be all sorts of information destined for cards. Once one taps, and the information is transferred to one’s card, a message propagates to have the message deleted from readers. In order to make sure things don’t linger to a point that the whole system is clogged, they have to have an expiry, which is 30 days. In the case of a top-up, after 30 days the amount will be refunded to the card used to do the top-up (found this out a couple of months ago, when I went to do a balance check after the 30 days, but before the refund had gone through).
This is a major reason why self-serve top-up terminals cannot take cash. That said, the terminals should be designed so that one has to complete the transaction with a tap of their Presto card so the amount could be instantly placed on the card. This, IMHO, would also save the whole network of the task of propagating it out to all terminals.
They probably feel (wrongly, IMHO) that the tiny mention on their site that one must tap within thirty days of topping up covers the registration as well.
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One more stupid thing about PRESTO concession fares. When you change categories, it automatically puts you into Adult. Thus, when changing from a “Child” of 12 to an “Adult” of 13, you must make a trek to a Customer Service Centre to reset the age.
Steve: I believe that the reason for this is that the status of “child” is set with an expiry date. The card does not remember how old the user is. For student fare classes, the expiry will, as I understand it, be set a few years out in the future so that eventually “student” status will expire. If the person really still is a student, they can renew their status.
Accepting cash is a logistic nightmare. You need to regularly refill change and collect bills while there is a much higher security/vandalism risk.
This is two fold being a preventative measure against lost/stolen cards and a data management tool.
Activate your Presto Card
There are many other bits that say the same if you’re looking for the info after knowing it.
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There is also this from the TTC PRESTO page:
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In my experience of using Presto on the TTC, it acts as a de facto timed pass. As recently as mid-July, I boarded a westbound streetcar (tapping on), rode for 15 minutes, got off and met some friends (a 20-25 minute stopover), then went back to the same streetcar line and boarded another westbound car (tapping on again). I was charged only 1 fare. I’ve also used Presto for non-standard transfers, i.e. Yonge Subway to a streetcar line, but transferring at Victoria or Church instead of Yonge. Presto only charges a single fare.
Steve: If this is by design, the TTC should say so.
Self-serve Presto terminals do complete a Presto card top-up instantly (or relatively instantly – one’s credit or debit card has to be verified, which takes about 15-20 seconds). There’s a little “pocket” on the self-serve terminals that you put your Presto card into, and once the credit/debit card details are verified, the machine transfers the amount directly to the Presto card, for instant use. As to why the self-serve terminals don’t take cash, I would guess it would have something to do with security – not keeping a pile of cash in a standalone box somewhere for someone to try and break into it.
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When in Montreal I bought an OPUS card. It doesn’t allow stored value – it allows stored tickets. I put on some island of Montreal tickets and used the card on the Metro. However, when I travelled to Montmorency in Laval by Metro, my Montreal tickets were no good for the return journey. I had to buy a Laval single ticket for CASH. From the confusing online instructions, it was never clear to me if I could have loaded some Laval tickets as well. I think so, but I am not sure.
Presto looks kinda good in comparison. However, I have also been to London…..
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The GTA Weekly Pass is already a 905-416 co-fare medium. I have wondered how the revenue is divided among transit agencies.
Steve: I don’t know about the division, but the price is high enough to discourage many users. The sales volume is quite low.
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Perhaps some of the readers from Quebec can correct me on this one, as I’ve only needed to use this it only a few times in the last couple of years, but from all the headaches I’ve heard about Presto, OPUS seems like it just works. I get to a Metro Station or Trudeau airport, insert my card, select English, see any remaining fare, choose which one I want to add, pay with cash, debit, or credit, remove my card, take my receipt, and it’s ready to use. In Quebec City, I went to the nearest Couche-tard, asked for a 5-day pass, gave them my OPUS card and paid, got my receipt, and my card was ready to use on the RTC (Quebec City transit) with the single ticket remaining from the STM (Montreal transit). I got my OPUS card years ago at a collector’s booth for $6 + a single fare, and registered it on my laptop from my hotel room.
The whole system allows for purchasing occasional cards for anything up to a weekly pass on a business card sized paper with an RFID chip inside. Heck, for those who really don’t want to (or can’t) go to a store or vending machine to load their fares, they can buy a reader from the STM to load their fares at home.
And this one is the one point I’m not too sure about, but my friends in Montreal assure me that when you buy a 1/3/7 day pass, it is good for 24/72/168 hours, not 1/3/7 calendar days. Not to mention Montreal specifically has many more types of concession passes.
While it’s not apples to apples, OPUS has been around for as long as Presto has, and the scale is smaller but a good point of reference (provincial scale, fares set by each transit authority). Hopefully Presto can become at least as stable as OPUS, provided the puppet masters stop interfering.
Steve: An important issue with Presto goes back to its early days of implementation as a GO Transit only medium. This brought certain design assumptions and constraints about how the card would be used that do not scale up or migrate well to a more complex fare environment. OPUS on the other hand served an urban, high volume environment from day one.
A good example of a “GO” focus was the move to define a “standard” Presto trip so that regular commuters would not have to tap out thereby relieving congestion at their “hone” stations. This avoided the need for Presto to actually process almost half of the taps they would otherwise get, and there was no need to provide a large volume of readers at station exits because most people would not require them. There is no equivalent in an urban setting where people take a huge variety of trips, and any move to require “tap out” for all TTC trips (even if only the “rapid transit” ones) presents a huge challenge for surge demands and physical constraints on passenger movement if stations are not redesigned and provisioned adequately.
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WRT Presto machines that accept cash representing a risk of theft…
So, how often are the TTC’s token machines stolen from? Issuing change to riders? Unnecessary, if the machine places the entire cash amount on the card.
It seems several people here see no reason to regret the loss of privacy offered by traditional payment by token, ticket or cash fare. Well, Ivan Ilich wrote a very convincing essay, some decades ago, about how we are as unaware of many of our traditional rights as a fish might be of the water they swim in. He argued we don’t become aware of our rights, or of how important they were, until they were stripped from us.
Some people suggested those with a privacy concern should top up their presto card at a human cashier, who was set up to accept cash. How many cashiers are set up to accept cash? When I looked into it there was one, count’em one cashier, at the rail portion of Union Station, who was set up to be able to top up a Presto card from a cash-paying rider. Apparently, TTC HQ had a second cashier.
Maybe someone in management argued that some Presto top up machines should be situated at bus kiosks, and other places not under observation by a fare collector, so no machines should accept cash, because this would require two kinds of machines. In 2014 I took pictures of one kind of fare machine, at stops on the TTC route, only to see technicians placing brand new replacment machines, just a few months later. So I am skeptical of any claim that multiple types of machine are an unmanageable burden.
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I would be very surprised if the TTC would have a student expiry that is a few years out. Just looking at the TTC in isolation, I don’t recall them ever issuing a student fare card that was good for more than a year, so why would they change now.
More importantly, I don’t believe Presto is set up to do that, as there seems to be ONE concession status for the card, not an agency-by-agency status. Our youngest had a Presto card set up for student fare when in high school. To do so required going to YRT’s office each school year, as it automatically expired. However, using another agency, such as GO, with the card did not require a separate setup for the concession – it was automatically applied with that card once set up through YRT.
Steve: That’s what was stated by staff at a TTC meeting, but given how the TTC loves to complicate things lest they “lose revenue”, I can see things changing. There is also the question of just what Presto’s capabilities really are, and this makes discussions about what fare systems might be used on a region-wide basis a bit foggy.
When any GO station has ticket booths open, one can top up one’s Presto card with cash. As for the TTC, they are too busy sitting around contemplating their navels to get the terminals into other places, like retail ticket agents. If one is at Finch station, one can top up with cash at the Gateway newsstand in the York Region/GO terminal. At York University, you can do so at Inkblotz. Don’t credit the TTC for these two locations, as it was either YRT or GO that put the Presto terminals there.
After YRT started using Presto, they too were too busy with navel contemplation to get terminals installed places, even though they had them on their property, according to what YRT’s CEO told me personally. There are a number of GO stations in York Region, but they are only open for Presto top-ups in the mornings. YRT made a big thing out of it when the Petro Canada convenience store on Bathurst south of Promenade Mall was the first ticket agent to have the terminal. It’s better now, but only 20% of ticket agents can do a Presto top-up (75 agents across York Region, and only 15 have Presto terminals).
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Theft from the boxes is a concern, but I think the real reason is the cost of hiring an armoured car firm to collect and disburse cash around the system every day, like is done for ATMs.
All customer service agents at all GO stations take cash for presto fares. There are always at least 4 on the York concourse and up to 12 at rush hour.
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That makes a bit more sense, however, it’s one extra line of code to say an expired “child” is a “student” while an expired “student” is an “adult”. Just a small example of a poorly thought out process putting the onus on the customer to be aware and do the work.
The GTA Weekly Pass is $61 and useful for TTC, Mississauga, Brampton and York Region Transit.
If you buy one every week that’s $3172/yr.
On the Metropass Discount Plan you can do the TTC for $1557/yr.
Obviously, if you are using three systems the GTA Weekly Pass is cheaper, but $264.33 per month is an pretty big push to private vehicle ownership.
There isn’t a breakdown according to cash-bearing machines, but there are roughly 3 criminal offenses committed on the TTC every day.
If you were including me, I wasn’t addressing the issue of anonymity, but just providing a rationale as to why the system is moving towards cash-less. I think this is an issue that needs to be fought at a national/judicial level, rather than inch by inch.
So in addition to the right to privacy, there is a right to convenient privacy?
Presto is basically four machines (ignoring differing generations of the tech or configurations): balance readers, fare scanners, ticket vending machines and automatic vending machines. The last of these does accept cash and have been selectively deployed.
My comment was just that part of the original concept of Presto was to be a cash-less system in order to reduce operational costs. That’s dying in steps, but it is raising the cost per trip of using Presto (and thereby eating the fabled cost savings the TTC will have, when the current contract expires and a higher rate is needed to recoup the costs).
My “student” has an expiration date in 2022 (19th birthday), when I reset it at the GO East Bay Concourse. No evidence required.
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Transport for London has switched to a contactless ticketing system that will read any RFID card. You tap on and tap off with any RFID credit card and you are good to go. They developed this with Cubic Transportation Systems.
If only we could have bought this system instead of following the standard Ontario practice of inventing our own “Superior System” that no one wanted. We only have to look at ICTS, The Icon Computer, Presto, e-Health, Orng Air Ambulance to see examples where Ontario has wasted loads of money to develop a “Made In Ontario” solution to a non existent problem. This is not a function of the Liberal Government as the Tories were responsible for at least two of these fiascoes.
Steve: Ontario has long been a sucker for treating things like this as “Industrial Development” and usually has its wallet open for any passing carpetbagger looking to “invest”. This creates a situation where the government’s reputation is bound up in the “success” of technology projects.
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We had one of those new Presto gates installed at my subway station recently and I noticed just one gate (out of 5 or 6) are for Metropasses (and this was not easily identifiable unless I looked closely for the swipe strip). I know the Metropass is supposedly going away next year but considering the Presto rollout in the system is incomplete and buying and/or topping up a card is not possible at many stations, shouldn’t they have temporarily converted more than 1 gate to support the Metropass? I doubt there will be 4 times as many Presto users than Metropass users anytime soon, especially with no easy way to buy or top up a card and no monthly pass option available on the Presto card.
Also, on a related note, I was speaking to my friend and she said there was a Presto rep on the Dufferin bus saying that the system was going to be Presto-only by March. Considering I’m encountering broken Presto readers on buses and streetcars several times a week I think it’s unlikely the system will be ready by then (unless the rep meant 2018).
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It’s not just TTC’s adoption of Presto that was botched but TTC’s introduction of POP has also been botched. It pains me to see so many people travel for free with little to no fare enforcement. A better solution would be to make streetcars free for travel and introduce turnstiles/barriers at subway stations where it makes connections with the streetcar system but then the TTC also botched the introduction of the new fare gates and not only are they very poorly designed and a magnet for fare evasion, some stations like Dufferin provided more than 3 months of free entry while the switch was being made; what was wrong with the old turnstiles which worked just fine?
Steve: The TTC is making provision for Metrolinx’ fare by distance scheme with the new fare gates. This has been a “stealth” move, and does not speak well to the openness with which our fare structure is being planned.
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Fare by distance will not bode well with those living in the suburbs like Scarborough, Etobicoke, and remote sections of North York.
Steve: I agree, and have been making this point for a long time, particularly in the context of rapid transit expansion.
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To be fair, the system that TfL is using didn’t exist when Presto started development. Next June will be 10 years in operation.
For example, the Oyster Card was introduced in 2002 and it wasn’t until 2005 when they introduced daily fare capping, it was 2007 when it was implemented on buses, in 2014 they stopped accepting cash on buses and started weekly capping.
I would posit the CANDU reactor as an example of Ontario tech done better. Darlington has been named “one of the safest and top performing nuclear stations in the world” for the last three years in a row.
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It seems that we either waste loads of money to develop a “Made In Ontario” solution to a non-existent problem that is non-existent because it was already solved somewhere else, or we actually adopt something but tout it like we are the first in the world to do it (e.g.: HOT lanes on the QEW today, and pedestrian scramble cycles at intersections in recent history).
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How do you know ‘so many people’ are travelling for free?
If you’re just counting people who board at the rear doors without tapping a Presto card, how do you know they don’t all have Metropasses? Half of all TTC trips use a Metropass, as Steve has pointed out many times.
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So had been Chernobyl in the 1980s until it blew up.
Steve: A fact check by those in the know would be welcome here.
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The only reason for that is because at the end of World War 2 we got the left overs when it came to dividing up the Nazi knowledge on nuclear reaction. It was impossible to make a heavy water bomb so no one else was interested in it. As fourth or fifth in line we got it as no one else wanted it. It turned out to be the safest form of nuclear reactors in the world. When it loses its moderator it stops instead of running wild. Some times there is an advantage in being at the end of the pack.
Still they are way ahead of us.
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