City
A smarter way...sometime after 2010
Torontonians will be enjoying smart card technology on their long commutes according to TTC Chairman Adam Giambrone. This is exciting news for anyone who has ever wanted a seamless ticketing system while traveling throughout the city. Instead of pesky tokens and tickets, imagine using the same rechargeable stored value card while switching between regional transportation, Go Transit and the TTC.
Modeled after the Octopus card used in Hong Kong, Giambrone said smart card technology is the only way to fully protect the TTC from fraud such as fake metropasses. He spoke to Andy Barrie on CBC's Metro Morning today and said the card system would probably be introduced sometime after 2010, but stressed that it is an Ontario government initiative. It is also expected to cost close to a quarter billion dollars.
In Hong Kong, the Octopus card is so successful it has been incorporated into almost all aspects of life. The contactless card can be used at most fast-food chains, drug stores, library photocopiers, parking meters and are even electronic keys for entry into residential buildings.
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I also like that the card enables payment based on travel distance by swiping to enter and exit the subway. This makes using the subway to travel one or two blocks up Yonge much more appealing if it isn't going to cost me as much as a trip to the end of the line.
I can use it for all the transit providers as well as some shops and restaurants. I can top it at terminal or you can authorize your bank account to top it up automatically when it gets below a certain level.
The only downfall is that I have pockets full of change that in Toronto would have gone to pay my streetcar fare.
One good thing for the customers was that if you lost your card you were able to get it replace. The smart card was dropped because the equipment was old and expensive to repair. There was a lack of funding.
the problem is not the TTC per se, although they have not made it a priority and thus have not helped. The problem is getting multiple transit agencies to agree on a card that they really want made specific to their needs rather than those of the region as a whole.
Maybe TTC should start recruiting from other transit agencies to bring in fresh ideas - there might be a lot of disillusioned people at OC Transpo post-LRT fiasco.
The problems with the TTC start at the top and continue on down. In 2007, it is laughable there are only a couple of electronic machines where I can buy a metropass. It is laughable that if I do purchase one from a "human", they are frequently sold out. It is laughable that I rarely get so much as grunt from the staff in the boothes when I say "hello". It is laughable that it costs the same to travel one block on a streetcar as it does to travel half an hour on the subway.
And the piece de resistance, it is laughable in the extreme that the TTC had to be taken to court to force them to announce stops on the subway and streetcars for the benefit of the blind (or, gasp, tourists even!).
They are colossal, unmitigated joke and an embarassment to a city that believes itself to be world class and/or modern.