Presto peeve from one of GO's squeaky wheels

A couple of years ago fed-up GO commuter Pat Eales launched an on-line petition complaining about the number of late trains on the Lakeshore West line.

She tapped into a groundswell of discontent that inspired GO to start a customer service committee and pick up its socks. GO's on-time performance has been on the rise and although there are lots of reasons for that, including schedule adjustments that better reflect real trip times, Eales' petition was a watershed moment.

But it wasn't enough to keep her on GO's committee or commuting into Toronto every day. Although she has a new job in the suburbs, Eales continues using Oakville transit and she even got on board with the new Presto fare card when it was introduced on those buses.

But it wasn't long before she found a shortfall with the new fare card. She ran into a negative balance on her card -- something Presto permits once to avoid stranding riders who have made an honest mistake. So Eales immediately went online and used her credit card to top up her e-purse and clear her debt.

But guess what? The next time she got on the bus, her card wasn't accepted by the reader. Seems GO, which administers Presto, doesn't let customers pay their debt and use their card again until they've actually gone into a station and settled up with a ticket agent.

When Eales called to complain and inquire she was told that the rule was clearly posted on the Presto website. But when she asked for a citation she got a vague response and was frustrated because she couldn't find that stipulation anywhere on the website.

So the Toronto Star called GO and transit officials 'fessed up. Eales couldn't find the rules on the website because that information wasn't there. That's been changed, according to Suzanne Adamkowski, manager of Presto client relations, who provided this link on Tuesday.

Wen we asked why on Earth Presto users couldn't clear their debt online Adamkowski was somewhat apologetic. The system was programmed according to the requirements set out by the various transit agencies using it years before Presto was rolled out.

"I can’t answer for what their thinking was at the time. It’s something that’s in the system that would take some reprogramming. There is no plan to fix it immediately and,... there are several things and that’s one of them that I’m bringing up at our operating committees in the next little while," said Adamkowski.

 

Also on the list is a 'remember me' feature so users don't have to retype their long Presto identity number every time they want to enter the site's registered user area. Because the Presto numbers are so long -- mine has 17 digits -- and to make the system more convenient, transit officials are considering allowing you to log into Presto using your email address -- a feature of virtually every website now.

 

"We have a new software deployment going in November that will add things like concessions – the ability for seniors and students to use a Presto card," Adamkowski told me.

 

The limit on how much you can load on your e-purse will also be raised from $320 to $1,000. 

Everybody wants a piece of the TTC's payment action

The specs for the TTC's open fare payment system have been requested by no fewer than 68 parties, including major credit card companies, banks and even Accenture, the company that won the $250 million contract to design the province's rival transit farecard, Presto, which the TTC doesn't want to install.

Some of those names, ranging from newspaper reporters to Metrolinx officials, aren't likely to register as official bidders. But it will be Monday before the TTC publicly announces which companies on the long list are making a serious play for the business, worth about $900 million annually.

The business opportunity is extreme, given that TTC ridership continues to climb and the Canadian market for micro-payments is only going to expand. Transit fares are considered a great gateway to convincing more of us to convert to the so-called contactless credit and debit card for those small purchases we're now transacting in cash.

"The card is the same card you use to buy your newspaper and coffee," Mastercard vice-president Cathleen Conforti told The Toronto Star this summer in a phone interview from her New York office.

She wasn't coy about the company's interest in the TTC and used the Mastercard experience on New York transit by way of example.

"You can use your card to go buy a Metrocard. You register for your monthly pass and give them your credit card information and you tap with your card every day and the payment platform knows you have that. The most important thing we're supplying is the convenience for the consumer," she said.

And there's no hassle for the rider in terms of converting to a special credit card, said Comforti.

"Over 99 per cent of active cards are PayPass enabled. In Canada you do not have an issue in enabling consumer cards. Globally,... it is a feature everybody wants on their card," she said.

Her company, which is on the TTC list, has been involved in transit for years in Salt Lake City, Paris, Liverpool, Warsaw and Taiwan.

Bad day for Toronto's streetcars

It was out with the old and out with the new this week as mayoral race frontrunner Rob Ford suggested that Mayor David Miller's new suburban light rail lines to the suburbs were a flight of madness that needs eliminating. He also said that downtown traffic would move faster if we got rid of some of the old streetcar lines and replaced them with buses.

Never mind that people like streetcars better because the tracks offer a sense of permanence that reassures them their ride won't be rerouted or eliminated in hard times.

According to Ford's website -- he didn't give The Toronto Star an interview -- buses would allow better traffic flow at less cost.

But it's not clear whether buses are easier on traffic. The law now requires that motorists yield to buses pulling in and out of stops and it would take more than three times as many to carry the same number of commuters who pack the streetcars along King and Queen.

Typically buses stop more than streetcars too, particularly on suburban avenues like those where the Transit City lines are planned.

Not much news in Ford's rejection of the newfangled suburban light rail lines. But it was a welcome announcement anyway from the east-end Save Our Sheppard (SOS) crowd who took to their namesake avenue Wednesday lobbying for a halt to construction of the Sheppard LRT, the first Transit City line scheduled for completion.

According to SOS stalwart Patricia Sinclair, Ford showed up for the morning rush-hour event, along with rivals Sarah Thomson and Rocco Rossi. (pictured here with Sinclair)

Another idea that keeps popping up, the conversion of the SRT to a subway, is being misrepresented as a matter of simply popping bigger trains on the original light rail above ground track. But transit experts were quick to point out that subways couldn't handle the curves on the SRT and the whole route might have to be changed.

That exercise would easily up the cost from the $1 billion Ford has hung on the project.

And don't even get transit insiders started on the viability of changing the Metrolinx Big Move plan, including Transit City, by the Pan Am Games in August 2015.

The Sheppard subway extension being proposed by Ford is about 4 kilometres longer than the Spadina subway extension, which is about 8 kilometres with six stops, that won't be finished until at least late 2015. It's been in the design and engineering mode for at least two years and the tunnel boring machines the TTC ordered about a year ago to drill the hole haven't yet been delivered.

So creating a 10-stop subway in less than five years seems unlikely at best. And, by the way, the idea that the boring machines Metrolinx has ordered for the underground portion of Eglinton could be transferred to Sheppard is a non-starter. The custom-built machines aren't the right size for subway digs. It's conceivable those that are to be used on the Spadina line might work but then you would have to wait until the end of 2015 to start employing them.

What would Rob Ford say about this?

 Spacing points out this brilliant nugget from another jewel of urban blogging, Copenhagenize. It's about the problem of illegal bike parking in the aforementioned city where hardy, green commuters are apparently devoted to cycling even in a cold climate.

The city has apparently employed bike butlers to move the illegally parked bikes to appropriate racks, give them a little tune-up and leave a polite note asking the cyclist to reconsider their parking practices next time.

Online tool helps cyclists plan routes

It works for transit, why not cyclists?

This month Toronto's online cycling newsletter, Cyclometer, points to a neat little online tool called Ride The City. It lets you map a route online and shows which sections have bike paths or lanes. You can even select a safe, safest or direct route.

You can drag the little green cyclist on your screen to figure out what streets are nearby your destination.

Streetcars the wrong way to grow, says Sheppard group

Rob Ford's lead may have eclipsed the talk about any actual issues in this year's city elections. But the Save Our Sheppard (SOS) community group still wants to discuss Toronto's transportation future.

The group wants the city and province to abandon plans for light rail, also known as streetcars, on a dedicated right-of-way along Sheppard Ave. That line is the first of the Transit City projects expected to be complete. SOS wants it scrapped in favour of a subway and the group is taking the issue to the thoroughfare in question.

It will host a Transit Awareness Blitz on Wednesday, September 8th from 07:15 to 08:45 a.m. along Sheppard at three intersections: Victoria Park, Warden and Kennedy. Some pro-subway mayoral candidates have been invited but so far only Rocco Rossi has confirmed he will be at Victoria Park during the blitz. Sarah Thomson's handlers were enthusiastic but haven't promised yet to deliver her to Warden that morning and, organizers are still awaiting word on Rob Ford's appearance at Kennedy which, after all, is a very long way from Etobicoke in rush hour.

Octopus card creators may have been too smart for their own good

For years, Hong Kong's Octopus card has been held up as one of the standards for transit fare card development in the Toronto region.

Apparently things aren't always as perfect as they appear on postcards from technology-hungry GO and TTC riders travelling abroad.

According to this report, the head of Octopus Holdings has resigned after admitting the company sold off the personal information of 2 million card users to businesses.

Light rail could help you live longer

A U.S. study has showed that light rail transit in Charlotte, N.C., helped reduce obesity in commuters there by increasing their daily exercise because they had to walk to a transit stop and it improved people's perceptions of their neighbourhood.

"The results of this study suggest that improving neighborhood environments and increasing the public's use of LRT systems could provide improvements in health outcomes for millions of individuals," concludes the article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The link to highlights of the research comes from Marty Collier of Healthy Transport Consulting, who is responsible for organizing an annual road pricing summit in Toronto for the last three years that has attracted some of the world's foremost authorities on congestion solutions to speak here.

Does the Board of Trade have a Presto conflict?

Can a business lobby have a conflict of interest?

It's a murky question, according to at least one blog, which notes that Accenture is a major sponsor of the Toronto Board of Trade.

Last week the Board of Trade took the TTC to task for pursuing a new fare system that would allow its riders to pay using a credit or debit card, or a cell phone at the turnstiles.

The TTC has long dragged its feet on adopting the Presto card and now wants to bypass what it believes to be outdated Presto technology in favour of open payment, which is being piloted in New York and Chicago, although it hasn't been fully adopted yet by any North American transit system except one in Utah.

But Presto is the product of a $250 million, 10-year contract between Accenture and the Ontario government. The TTC's participation in Presto has been estimated to be worth between $320 million and $500 million the cost of changing the old fare boxes over to the new electronic readers.

In open payment pilots south of the border, credit card companies have been paying the freight, according to the Presto folks.

But with a TTC RFP pending, it's not clear what kind of start-up capital and operating costs might be covered in a similar project here and TTC officials aren't saying for fear of tainting the RFP process.

Getting the knack for the tap

Just as Presto proponents begin duking it out with the TTC's proposed introduction of an open payment fare system, I'm getting the hang of the still-new-to-us smartcard on GO.

I think I've figured out where I went wrong using the over-ride feature on Presto. I suspect in my eagerness or anxiety I tapped twice at my destination, effectively beginning another trip when I had in fact ended my journey. But when I went to tap back on the next time, the computer showed that I hadn't paid my full fare because that "accidental" trip was never terminated.

The problem I anticipated of forgetting to tap off when I take a GO train from a station other than my regular commute hasn't materialized. I may be guilty of tapping twice a couple of times but so far I haven't forgotten to tap at all.

David Smith, who is managing the Presto project, says there are 8,000 card users. Among those 600 also use the TTC.

The TTC reckons about 10 per cent of its riders also use another transit system.