Rocket Talk: Can Sunday Subway Service Start Sooner?
Newsstand: November 19, 2009
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Have questions about the TTC? Rocket Talk is a regular Torontoist column, featuring TTC Chair Adam Giambrone and Director of Communications Brad Ross's answers to Torontoist readers' questions. Submit your questions to rockettalk@torontoist.com!
Reader Travis Bird asks:
My question has to do with buying tickets/passes from the ticket booths in the subway stations. I find it very inconvenient that the TTC does not accept debit payments at the ticket booths when I need to buy my tokens. In order for me to get cash, I have to get off the TTC system, go to an ATM and then get back on to a bus/subway. Why not even have automated vending machines that users could use their credit cards or debit cards to buy fares (there used to be vending machines, but I haven't noticed them lately)? If I can buy gas at the pump with my debit card, there must be a way that I can buy TTC fares too.
TTC Chair Adam Giambrone says:
The TTC is behind other systems in its fare collection methods, but this might just end up being an advantage in an unexpected way. Electronic payment technology is changing rapidly, and we are in a position to adopt the newest forms of it, which may supersede the current smart card systems in a number of cities. Effectively, we may be able to skip a generation of smartcards entirely and save many millions of dollars.
Bringing communications and electrical lines into stations is expensive, and is sometimes complicated in older stations by the presence of asbestos, which is time-consuming and expensive to remove. This is the reason, for example, why OneStop screens are not yet in some stations.
There will soon be new token and pass vending machines that will augment the small number of existing pass vending machines that accept credit and debit cards. Additionally, we will begin to replace the old token vending machines that only accept cash and are prone to breaking down. These machines will also be designed to sell pre-paid farecards, so when an open-payment/smartcard system comes, they will not become redundant.
While everyone wants a farecard system in place (including me), we don't want to be the last to adopt what is now old technology. The TTC, working with the Government of Ontario, is close to announcing an “open payment” system, where you tap your bank card or credit card directly at the turnstile. “Open payments” would use the new chip cards and allow passes (Metropass, weekly pass, etc.) to be loaded onto a credit or debit card through the internet or at new vending machines. Bear in mind that it took London nine years to fully roll out the Oyster card, so even at half that, full implementation of this system will be three to five years away. In the meantime, TTC is also rolling out an e-commerce function on the website, which will allow the purchase of passes and perhaps larger volumes of tokens or tickets, with delivery right to your door.
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different payment methods means less jobs for fare collectors.
so less $100 000/year employees.
think the TTC wants to do that?
RFID cards can be read by unscrupulous and dishonest people, and can be tampered with, and these new systems are hard to implement in older subway stations. Just like Mr. Giambrone said.
The Union is definitely against an automated system. Although it seems more efficient and probably does save money. I see huge line ups at booths every day, luckily I have a metropass but those lines are ridiculous.
I've been to a few cities; Boston, London, Paris and Milan. All these transit sytems are very old but they have a more modern fare system. I was surprised at the fare system in Milan, paper tickets with many dispensing machines that took credit cards etc, the other cities had these machines, but I was especially suprised with Milan.
Now comparing these cities to Toronto, the fare system here is archaic, and sorry Adam but it's the last system to modernize. I'm 28 and I've lived in Toronto for 25 years, the system hasnt changed, only the tokens and tickets have changed in looks. The fare system will probably stay the same in my life time. The escaltors are always in constant repairs creating bottle necks etc.. so many problems but nothing really changes.
It's nice to hear the potential Adam describes but im jaded with the transit system here so really not that hopeful.
this is the transit operator that can't give us a journey planner and four years after being asked won't give the data to Google Transit.
I don't have a lot of faith in their ability to move to epayment - not when their budget has money to strengthen the floor of their cash/token counting room.
Indeed, and although I agree with Adam it will be nice to skip the early iterations of electronic fare payment, I can't help but think how this "benefit" was also realised by 3rd world countries when they skipped the old land-line phone technology and are going straight to cell phones.
Thanks for this.
I have a question about transfers, though I don't think it would qualify for a full Rocket Talk article: Why are transfers obtained at a station not valid for that station's connecting routes?
For example, if I get on the subway at St. George and head south to St. Patrick, and while I'm on the subway I remember I was supposed to head out Dundas to pick something up, grabbing a transfer at St. Patrick station won't allow me onto the Dundas street car. I could stop at Museum, get off the subway, grab a transfer, get back on the subway and then be able to transfer to the Dundas street car.
I've thought about this quite a bit and can't come up with some 'scam' or something that this policy seeks to thwart.
Does anyone know why this policy is in place? Any speculation?
This is so simple, even you should be able to figure it out; to prevent fraud and double dipping (i.e., paying for one fare/transfer and then using said transfer to get more free rides.) It's not nuclear science.
How about this reason: token amounts cost $10.00 and $20.00, not $5.00. Again, not nuclear science.
A token costs $2.75, so when you put your $5 in, you'd then get a token, plus a toonie and a quarter in change. It's not like the machine doesn't give change; it does.
I've waited in long fare booth lines a few times when all I've had in my pocket is a $5 bill, and I would have rather received a token from the machine in about five seconds and gone through right away.
It's not nuclear science.
I think that'd be the problem: they'd be dispensing more change per token sold, and have to refill the change dispensers more often. Unless as many people buy tokens with toonies and quarters as buy with fives.
I'd be more sympathetic if it wasn't a machine built for the sole purpose of dispensing coins!
Whoa! "even you should be able to figure it out" - wtf! Go have a smoke, man!
I still don't see how my example could possibly lead to 'fraud' or 'double dipping'. I'm such a moron...
Maybe they're not worried about what any one person does: maybe it's a hedge against people paying the fare, entering the station, printing off a bunch of transfers, and passing them back to their non-paying friends who then board buses on the street above or enter the subway.
I agree that it can't be a simple fear of people paying a subway fare and then evilly boarding a bus, because, in addition to such a fear being utterly irrational, many stations are set up to allow just that.
The real solution is to have the turnstile spit out a transfer as you pay. One fare, one transfer, no tricks. I'm sure that a mechanism like the one in the old mechanical transfer printers, the ones that went "ka-chunk," could be tied to the rotation of the turnstile. The new printers seem to take approximately 27 years to dispense a transfer, though I suppose that that could be deliberate, to prevent mass printing.
Thanks for the idea... That kinda makes sense, but what's to stop someone from getting a bunch of transfers at one subway station and bringing them along to where ever he or she is meeting their 'devious' friends? Nonetheless, your idea does fall within the notion expressed above that the TTC assumes we're all criminals..
There's still no excuse for the token machines accepting $10 and $20 bills, but not $5 bills.
Here's a better question: When will the TTC stop assuming their passengers are all criminals, and move to an all-POP system?
Every time I'm on the streetcar, and I have to wait five minutes for each passenger to deposit their fare (or fumble for their pass, or pull pennies one at a time from their pocket), I die inside a little.
So far I'm aware of one pass-vending machine at Finch station; I believe it accepts MasterCard as well as debit. The TTC should certainly expand/improve access to these and the token-dispensing machines. Publicizing the locations might help.
There's also one at Bloor-Yonge and one at Queen.
(For the hundredth time, I'm sure.) In Seoul you can pay your fare by passing your cell phone over a reader at the turnstile. There are also smart card machines and ticket machines, of course, but also multiply-manned counters with attendants to do it all manually. And these counters are well into the stations, not right at the front door where they'd choke foot traffic with their line ups. And seniors ride for free.
Now, how do we make funding the TTC a provincial and federal election issue?
And organized crime can empty my bank account by cloning my phone? And Skynet can track me forever, instead of tracking a pass for a week or a month?
The Skynet is falling!
@rek: I understand the technology used for phone payments in Asia is very similar to the technology used for wireless credit and debit cards. Conceivably a single reader could support both. The larger roadblock is that wireless providers won't sell phones with payment technology until they can find a way to profit from every transaction.
As for the election bit...well, that just makes me cry.
I think this is a valid question and Giambrone's answer posed another question in my mind, regarding Onestop: How useful would one more Onestop screen be as opposed to one debit machine? Instead of trying to "skip a technological generation" wouldn't it be better to save the money on things that can help the commuter instead of having things that just look good for the commuter?
This.
Saving many millions of dollars by doing nothing is great and all, but at what cost?
Would more people ride for those short trips so loved by bean counters if they could just tap on with their wallet? Did the TTC put a price on annoyance on having to carry little teeny bits of metal to pay for a transit trip in a city of 2.5 million in the 21st century? And how much of those many millions went back to the TTC staff counting the tokens?
And just to say, I do love the little teeny tokens. But I think I loved Montreal's OPUS card more.
The TTC still owes me $20 in tokens for a machine chewing up a bill, back in February.
How does all this tie into the Presto system (note: only one month left in Fall, people), or is that just for GO Transit?
I think the TTC dislikes Presto for the same reason it doesn't like zone fares: both would reduce its ability to fund suburban routes. I'm not a fan of that rationale. See also my comment on this article (over a year ago!).
London has 270 stations and 400km of track, while Toronto only has 69 stations and 68.3 km of track.
So, if it took London 9 years to fully implement it here are my calculations:
Newer tech, plus a plan that has already been used in other cities: Cut that by half to about 4.5 years
1/4 of the stations: That by about half to 2 years
Union and TTX productivity: Increase that about tenfold to about 20 years.
Yea, that sounds about right?