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The TTC’s New Fare Box Goes Back in Time

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20100128ttcfarebox.jpg
Over the next few weeks, the TTC will be testing a newfangled fare box on one of its buses on the 31 Greenwood route. The box (pictured above) features the latest technology from the 1970s, including a magnetic card reader, a token slot, a slot for cash and tickets, and a flashing light that will alert drivers to counterfeit tokens or Metropasses.
“It’s designed to try to limit the counterfeiting of tokens and some of our passes,” Danny Nicholson, the TTC’s corporate communications supervisor, told Torontoist. “The technology is very similar to the current turnstiles in our subway systems.”
The TTC loses just over a million dollars a year to fraud, and although counterfeit Metropasses are a problem, the box is primarily aimed at counterfeit tokens. According to Nicholson, that’s where the problem is.


20100129ttcfarebox.jpg
Over the next few weeks, the TTC will be studying the effects of the new box on the 31 Greenwood route, and then in the first week of February the project will be extended to a bus on the 72 Pape route, and, shortly after, a streetcar on the 501 Carlton route. The TTC’s biggest concern is that the new magnetic card reader might result in increased loading times on busier routes, possibly causing delays.
The estimated cost to install the new fare box on buses, streetcars, and by collectors’ booths is $5.3 million. According to Nicholson, “the money that we’re putting into this project now will be made back through less loss of revenue through counterfeiting”—which, at a loss of a million dollars a year, will take at least five years to recuperate. The boxes also aren’t compatible with smart card technology, so they’ll have to be replaced, or at least upgraded, when the province’s Presto card is widely introduced.
“If Toronto is moving to automatic fare collection, why are we spending money on the ‘old’ fare system?” asked transit sage Steve Munro in an email to us. “Is this another case of the Commission failing to challenge management?”
In a previous installment of Torontoist’s Rocket Talk on fare collection methods, Chair Adam Giambrone wrote that the TTC doesn’t “want to be the last to adopt what is now old technology.” Calling this new fare box old is an understatement; it could easily belong in a museum.
Thanks to Joe Clark for tipping us off. Photos by Stephen Michalowicz/Torontoist.

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  • http://undefined Adam

    So what about rear door entry when you have a pass or transfer?
    If they insist on swiping all every metropass, as well as force everyone to get on through the front doors, you’re going to see massive congestion all through downtown.

  • http://undefined Darren

    They have had this in NYC for over a decade now, and there’s counts change (Like Misssauga Transit) as well as interacts with the transfer system
    This will not even come close to eliminating fare evasion. PoP and tranferless busbays are still a large source of fare evasion. Install these readers on every surface vehicle and eliminate busbays, and then we might come close to elminating fare evasion

  • http://undefined TokyoTuds

    Wow, did the TTC buy these used from the Beijing Transit Authority? Seriously, though, according to Wikipedia:
    “The TTC has approved the use of a smartcard system and is working with Presto in addressing the TTC’s business requirements for “full” system participation. The project has received $140 million in funding from the provincial and federal governments, however the TTC has estimated in its 2009-2013 budget that the project would take $365 million to complete.”
    What a fricking waste of time and money!

  • http://dandmb50.tumblr.com/ dandmb50

    It’s about time and they should also have the high tech system that they have in that huge city (Mississauga) they are way ahead of us for years, their fare box actually counts the money you put in the box.
    But I saw today in the Sun that our (sleeping TTC collector) is back on the job??
    I’m just guessing but I think he just woke up?

    Daniel ……….. Toronto
    http://dandmb50.tumblr.com/

  • http://undefined Mark Ostler

    Dublin’s bus service has change-counting fare boxes. The best part is that if you don’t have exact change, the ticket that’s printed out tells you how much you overpaid and then you can take it to the central transit office and get your change back (though I would assume that people don’t make the trek for 20 cents, but save up their overpaid receipts). But then again, they also have zoned fares.

  • http://www.guesswork.ca Patrick Metzger

    “At least five years to (recoup)” is right. Realistically it won’t stop all counterfeiting, so who really knows what the savings will look like or how long it will take to make back the $5.3 million? What an extraordinary waste of time and money.

  • rek

    This is ridiculous. Why are they bothering when they know the Presto card is coming?
    I’d rather the TTC spent that $5.3 million on hiring someone who knows how city transit should function (and does, in other cities) and let him/her lay out a 15-20 year comprehensive plan to give the TTC direction that makes sense.

  • http://undefined m

    ewww…..

  • http://undefined Derek Quenneville

    It seems like this could end up creating more tension between passengers and drivers. I’ve had to try tokens more than once at some turnstiles before they were accepted, and one month my metropass got demagnetized and wouldn’t swipe.

  • http://undefined lunarworks

    Meanwhile, all the buses in Oakville, a town which doesn’t really care much at all for transit, now have Presto readers installed in them.
    I wouldn’t place the blame squarely on Giambrone. The TTC’s entire management team needs to be replaced.

  • http://undefined Svend

    Rear door entry with these readers wouldn’t work, someone could just walk past it without paying at all.
    I agree these are a waste of money if we’re getting smart cards, but maybe we aren’t getting them at all.
    Are there other major cities doing the same, holding off completely?

  • http://undefined joeclark

    This is not exactly the stupidest idea TTC has ever had. But it is its stupidest idea in the last five years.
    Now, I know TTC has no sophistication in this regard whatsoever, but isn’t this the worst industrial design of any product you have seen in your entire life? Then let’s talk about the type, which should make even Windoids cringe. (Windoids “designed” it, i.e., some former bus driver typed it up in MS Word.)
    In anticipation of the complete failure of this system, I now carry the receipt for my Metropass along with the pass. I expect further arguments with bus drivers, especially since I take the Greenwood bus every day.
    Also, 501 is the Queen streetcar, not Carlton (506).

  • http://www.flickriver.com/photos/doitintheroad/ dcooper

    This is insane. Of course it’s going to increase loading times. Aside from the obvious antiquity of the device, and the already-stated fact that it will not avert all fare evasion anyway, this is ugly and confusing. If every passenger will have to decide between three payment options every time they enter a TTC bus, I’ll happily keep my Metropass in my pocket and quietly slip in the back doors.

  • http://undefined josher

    A number of potential problem can easily be seen and have been mentioned by previous comments. Having everyone swipe with a metropass will increase loading time, no doubt. The London system all you have to do is hover the oyster card infront of the sensor.
    I dont care if they’re ugly or not, it has to work efficiently and not inconvenience of passengers/operators.

  • http://undefined dowlingm

    “In anticipation of the complete failure of this system, I now carry the receipt for my Metropass along with the pass.”
    Hmmm… I guess those of us who get it in the post will need to keep the paper bit with our address on it – if they will believe that of course.

  • http://undefined dowlingm

    Maybe we could sell our boxes to Ottawa. Their city council is dumber than ours in respect of Transit.

  • http://undefined Darren

    I personally dont care if loading times are effected. Thats the non-monetary price we’d pay to make sure everyone pays their fare. But this isnt enough. We need to eliminate transferless busbays and overhual the transfer system so they are all recorded on the card.

  • http://undefined joeclark

    Josher, people in this town have got to stop failing to care if public services are “ugly or not.”

  • http://undefined atomeyes

    great.a crappy spinoff of this crappy idea?
    less votes for Adam Giambrone and a greater chance Smitherman becomes our mayor.

  • http://undefined Nicholas

    Good grief! I agree with josher above that the only way to go (and I hope this is the case for the Presto card) is touchless, as in Oyster card.
    What are the stats on fare evasion through counterfeited metropasses and tokens (I thought that’s why there are now holograms and the Giambronee) versus bus bay/transfer fraud?

  • http://undefined That Guy

    A million dollars in fare evasion!? … Eh, who cares. No, seriously.
    Increasing loading times is going to impose a very real cost on a large number of people. Our time is valuable, after all, and even if it only delayed the average rider a few seconds per trip that would add up to around 20,000 days of life going down the drain per year. And of course we’re talking about degrading the quality of service and possible lowering the number of people taking transit. And for what? So that the TTC’s revenue can go up 0.1%? What are the chances that the downsides of this will decrease ridership levels by at least that much, leaving the TTC with less money than it had before? (And that’s even ignoring the cost of all those machines.)
    Ah, but justice would be served, wouldn’t it. No more people stealing from the TTC. No more people riding for free when you paid your $2.50 or $3 or $120/month. And I think that innate human desire for fairness be more of a motivating factor for projects like these than anything of practical value.
    A million dollars? Meh.

  • http://undefined Darren

    So what if less people use the TTC? Its not like the TTC makes more money with every rider. They lose more money with every new rider.
    Wait times in boarding are things we can get used to. Its the norm in NYC and they are in more hurry then people here.

  • http://undefined Travis

    How many tokens do you think are going to end up in the Cash/Tickets hopper? And, it all seems a little…”unilingual” doesn’t it?. No regard to the non-English riders…

  • http://undefined Andy

    Absolutely. i am so fed up of ugly hand written signs stuck to the inside of ticket booths with scotch tape, tack, gum or whatever else is handy. it’s highly likely no-one could ever take a photo of a snoozer in my local station because you couldn’t see them for all the visual noise blocking the view.

  • http://undefined canuck1975

    Let’s do a simple back of the napkin analysis.
    Investment = $5.3 million
    Fraud = ~$1 million annually ($83,333 monthly)
    Assuming a 100% reduction in fraud, the ROI is 64 months.
    This obviously wouldn’t reduce fraud completely, so let’s go with an optimistic 75% reduction. Now, the monthly saving is $62,500. That puts us up to 85 months.
    I understand that the TTC is doing the pilot project to be able to better gauge how much fraud could be reduced with these machines, but even on an optimistic 75% reduction, the pay-off isn’t for seven years.
    Correct me if I’m wrong, but if the TTC is going to start rolling out a smart card system in 2013, doesn’t this just seem like money down the toilet? At least it would come from the Capital line and not Expense.

  • http://undefined panko

    Excellent job by the article to bring up Giambrone’s comment on how delays in impleneting new technologies would allow TTC to leapfrog to newer, super technologies (or whatever bullshit explanation he gave). Now, mere weeks later, TTC is leapfrogging BACK to an old technology. I don’t blame Giambrone for this, the whole TTC management must be just plain stupid. For further evidence look to their reinventing the wheel with the trip planner or, better yet, the recent poster/sign campaing “where to find maps and info” – featuring 1998/99 edition of Yellow Pages! When I am in the subway, I want a goddamn map of the system right there, I am not carrying Yellow Pages with me, you idiots.

  • http://undefined panko

    No kidding. Apprently Los Angeles (if I recall correctly) did a similar analysis for their system where fare payments were on honor system and concluded that additional turnstile, security, etc costs would not be worth it – the additional fares wouldn’t offset the increase costs. And here, we’re going with a hal-assed, band-aid solution…sigh

  • http://undefined That Guy

    I’ve seen a few people claim that the TTC loses money with more riders but never a citation for it.
    The second part, however, is just bizarre. We could probably get used to being punched in the face every time we board a TTC vehicle too. The question is not “Can we get used to this?” but rather “Is this a good idea?” Waiting times are a cost (time is money, you know) and if you’re going to impose a cost on people, you better be getting an equivalent benefit.
    Let’s look at it from a purely monetary perspective, i.e. ignore the fact that people have a finite amount of time on this earth and so every second is precious, etc. etc. The TTC provides something like 480,000,000 trips per year. At a delay of, say, 3 seconds per trip, that works out to a total 400,000 hours per year lost to delays. The minimum wage in Ontario is $9.50/hour so that works out to a minimum of $3.8 million per year. That’s 280% more than the entire cost of fare evasion. And both the 3 seconds per trip and $9.50/hour (I have no idea what the average TTC rider makes) are severe underestimates.
    And really, what’s the point here? We’re talking about 0.1% of the TTC’s revenue. This is the smallest of small potatoes.

  • http://undefined Andrew

    Hear hear.

  • http://undefined That Guy

    To LA, add Portland (Oregon), Amsterdam and Berlin as cities which use a proof-of-payment only system.
    But it’s not exactly the honour system if there’s folks checking and you face large fines if you don’t comply.

  • Darren

    Just noticed it now, but look at the Operator reading a newspaper while the picture is being taken..lol

  • http://undefined John Duncan

    @Darren
    Unfortunately increasing loading times is not actually a “non-monetary price” but rather a very real monetary expense.
    The longer loading time is, the more time it takes to run a route. The more time it takes to run a route, the more vehicles are required to run it at a given headway. The more vehicles that are required, the more drivers are required. At current pay rates, the TTC is already having trouble attracting enough competent drivers for existing service, so recruiting more drivers might necessitate a more attractive pay and benefits package.
    i.e. Increased loading times = increased capital and operating expenditures
    Of course, the TTC could choose to run the same number of vehicles at a less frequent headway, but then they’d lose farebox revenue while incurring the same operating costs.

  • Darren

    Its not a monetary issue. The TTC needs to stop looking at this notion that “A rider is a rider is a rider” (Adam has actually be quoted saying that line).
    Riders are not equal. Those who ask too much of the system and those who expect to travel across town for the same fare as everone else should not be treated as equals
    Those who cannott accept a change in fare system are not welcome. Cash fare is extremely rare in NYC, and even then the transfer is issued to the rider on a paperlike ticket which has a magentic strip. Their buses have systems like the one this article which are also printers of those tickets/transfers.
    That being said, Im not in favour of the prototype that the TTC is using as it doesnt addres fare evasions in busbays

  • http://undefined That Guy

    Yeah, I’m sure he’s driving the bus while reading a newspaper. There’s no chance that picture was taken while the bus was idling at a station.

  • http://undefined That Guy

    If 400,000 hours of people’s lives per year is worth nothing to you (to me, it’s worth much more than money but that’s another topic) then there’s no point in having this conversation.

  • http://undefined joeclark

    RFID smart cards simply are not going to be supplanted at any time in the foreseeable future and are not an “old” technology the TTC could “leapfrog.”
    Here, have a paper transfer. It’s printed in today’s colour and has the day’s date and serial number and the route name on it. Night transfers are a different model, though. Leapfrog that.

  • http://undefined Darren

    Obviously the bus is idle. It just looks ill-planned

  • http://undefined Darren

    The TTC cannot please everyone. People can learn to live with this system as well as the eventual elimination of tranferless busbays. It happens in other cities and it can happen here. The only certain issue is that our current system sucks and we have to move from that.

  • http://undefined pman

    Giambrone’s claim that the TTC shouldn’t implement existing smartpass technology because something better will come along is analogous to saying the TTC shoudn’t ever buy a computer because technology will change. That attitude alone should disqualify him from being mayor.
    I regularly use the STM in Montreal. I load my Opus card from a machine paying with my credit card and get to choose from a number of different fare plans. I wave it at a turnstile and it works. I transfer from the Metro to the bus and again it just works for transfers. No human intervention. If Montreal and just about every other transit system in the first world can implement this superior technology, why is the TTC so resistant?

  • http://undefined Darren

    The STM rocks. I was there again in the summer and their new car system rocks.

  • http://undefined Darren

    The TTC will never to the Opus card which is pretty much identical to NYC’s. They flew Montreal staff in in 2008 to help the TTC understand what it needed to do to automate. That was 2 years ago, yet not change. This prototype will end up being poo-poo-ed by management with pressure from the union. They did the same with articulated buses. They find reasons to reject prototype tecnhology yet at the same time they find excuses to maintain aging technology.

  • http://undefined rek

    How do we stop them from implementing this across the service network? It’s a bad idea to everyone but the TTC.

  • http://undefined Darren

    Rek, it will die on its own. Its just a matter of time

  • http://undefined panko

    I think there was a part of the system (maybe a line) that had no one checking and still the complaince rate was high enough to make the enforcement cost ineffective…I tried to find the article I read but no luck :(

  • http://undefined rek

    This is the TTC, they’ll be standard in surface vehicles until 2037 if they aren’t stopped now.

  • http://undefined That Guy

    Again, the fact that people can learn to live with it means almost nothing. If you do not understand the concept of cost vs. benefit, there is beyond no point in this conversation.

  • http://undefined atomeyes

    a TTC bus is like a rolling Mechano set.
    they keep on adding crap on top of crap on top of crap until it looks like a shanty cornerstore.

  • http://undefined Darren

    Its a not an issue of cost if that cost is necessary. Do I like waiting in line at the bank? No…its a cost of me doing business with that bank.

  • http://undefined Jenmypen

    Why isn’t Giambrone stopping this complete waste of money on “old” technology?
    Does he answer to the TTC? Or do they answer to him?

  • little_potato

    It’s not just Mississauga. The TTC is behind I believe all other Ontario cities (I can at least count Kitchener-Waterloo, Windsor and TIMMINS) by at least 20 years.

  • little_potato

    I think in Toronto we actually may be able to get used to being punched in the face every time we board a TTC bus. Think about what TTC’s “announcements” in subway stations really are. If you think deep enough, you will realize that a lot of these announcements are actually insults. We are subconsciously insulted every time we wait for TTC trains (and I’d say this positively contributes to increased stress and indirectly to increased road rage and therefore pedestrian deaths =P), yet we get used to it. With TTC anything is possible. =P

  • http://dandmb50.tumblr.com/ dandmb50

    So what do the drivers do if someone uses an illegal metropass or fake token? Is he suppose to grab the guy, chase him or what is their plan? They surely didn’t think this through. I’m sure the people that sold these machines are laughing, because they had them in the back room and thought no-one would ever be stupid enough to buy this 10 year old technology, and then the TTC shows up and they turn around and rub their hands together. So people now know to either enter the rear doors or go into bus bays if you have illegal tokens or metropasses.
    Daniel ………. Toronto
    http://dandmb50.tumblr.com/

  • http://undefined joeclark

    The bus with this infernal contraption is 7873. I had the misfortune of getting it on Sunday on Greenwood, when it’s the only vehicle on the route. What’s the first thing the driver said about it, unprompted? It slows him down. Well, that‘s the open-and-shut case against it right there, is it not? (If not, there are a few others to choose from.)
    But, he told me while I stood there stewing, this thing would save so much money the TTC plans to buy more buses to make up for how much they delay the entire system. He actually said this. Dreaming it up, I imagine. But the more important thing is he bought the ostensible reason for this system – counterfeit detection – wholesale. It does nothing of the sort.
    It is, I say again, the stupidest thing the TTC has done in the last five years. They keep topping themselves, don’t they?

  • http://www.flickriver.com/photos/doitintheroad/ dcooper

    … still waiting for someone ambitious to establish a TTC lobby on [The People's] behalf.
    Responsible, interested citizens need to tell these headless chickens where to run.

  • http://undefined Darren

    The lobby has to be free of political involvement. Most of the existing lobbies are extension of grassroot political and/or environmental lobbies

  • http://bit.ly/jgk9h7 dandmb50

    Another thing came to mind, what happens (if they go with the money counter?) if a person puts in too much money? Do they get a receipt and get a refund from the TTC? There are just so many problems with this new system. It should be very interesting at the “Town Hall” meeting today (Sunday, April 11, 2010) but to hold it in a venue that only holds 300 people is again a stupid plan. For a city of 3 million they hold a meeting which attracts 300? I would estimate that at least 1000 people will show up and will it produce any results, I doubt it but to be fare, at least they are trying so let’s give them a chance. After all it’s not the Unions fault how badly the TTC is being run it’s management, which is lacking.
    Daniel … Toronto
    http://bit.ly/jgk9h7

  • Oddprodigy

    This is a joke…Windsor and Niagara already have WAY better fareboxes that read smart cards, magnetic cards, it prints an open direction 2 hour barcode transfer…

    This is sad…Toronto just loves to waste money.

  • Escalust

    Its so true…they spend all this money to buy old sh*t so they can get more money in the budget as time passes…meanwhile they charge the most money to ride the bus…TTC is scamming people but people are scam them with there old ass technology…fraud tokens? please…

    People are gonna be buying magnetic card readers off of eBay and making their own MetroPasses in no time.