City
TTC prepares to accept more credit and debit payments
After being the last vestige of analog payments for so long, the TTC has been accepting credit and debit cards for monthly Metropasses at almost all of its subway stations for several months. Now, the techno-shy transit agency is ready to expand the program, possibly for all transactions right down to a $3 single fare.
Chris Upfold from the TTC says the idea to widen its scope is based on the success of the Metropass pilot, which was tested at just eight stations. Now, card readers are in all but six ticket booths - system wide rollout wraps up Dec. 14 - and the Commission will try offering cashless payments for its weekly pass, slowly adding other fares one by one.
"We wouldn't flip a switch and do them all; we would move progressively down through the products," says Upfold, "It needs to be a plain and deliberate process we go through."
The amount of time each transaction takes to process is the main reason for the piecemeal progress. The stations' card readers are capable of processing contactless, "wave and pay" transations but the bank cards that support the technology are still far from ubiquitous.
The TTC plans to study ticket booths lines after adding products to the list of fares customers can purchase with a card to ensure wait times stay realistic. If transactions start to take too long - it takes about 30 seconds to process and chip and pin sale - plastic payments for small fares could remain impractical unless card technology improves.
Should the TTC be expanding its credit and debit payments while PRESTO is still in the works? Will it be easier to ride the subway and buy tickets now there's going to be another way to pay for more expensive tickets?
Chris Bateman is a staff writer at blogTO. Follow him on Twitter at @chrisbateman.
Photo: "Day 113" by Mike Campbell Photography from the blogTO Flickr pool.
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Calm the hell down.
Collector: Cash only
Me: (noticing no one behind me in line) Debit machine is right here, it says 'Approved' on it?
Collector: There is bank machine across the street.
Me: ?
MTA kiosks are either credit-only, or credit-or-cash. The credit-only kiosks are very small and require a lot less servicing.
Also, when they open the wheelchair gates, sometimes i stick a dime in instead of a token. often, the collector is reading 50 shades of grey or some romance/heroin novel and as long as they here a chime, they dont even bother.
lil tricks of the trade.
the best is when they stick up a paper sign that says "be right back". totally unguarded. free ride.
just my observations from 30 years of taking the better way :)
Anything that involves any other interaction takes too long and will infuriate lines of people.
TTC's slogan? riiight
Amazingly enough, some of the people here on Blog TO that support this are the same people who swear buck naked on a stack of Bibles that they won't ever use the self-serve checkout machines at local grocery stores because they remember how they worked at the grocery store when they were younger and don't want to put people out of work (http://www.blogto.com/city/2011/04/what_grocery_stores_used_to_look_like_in_toronto/)
To suggest that Toronto does anything considered 'the latest' is laughable. When you look at how far behind the city is on practically all progressive initiatives: pedestrian streets, bike lanes, transit, public housing, dealing with the Gardiner, state of good repair of parks, public realm, infrastructure, heritage preservation, liquor sales.. I can only assume that you too are posting in jest.
Not to mention the 'stick condos anywhere' approach to planning (or lack thereof) that has resulted in abominations such as CityPlace, Liberty Village and Queen Street Triangle.. among others.
Fucking Toronto, where even the simplest, most mundane step towards normalcy turns into a knee jerk, us against them, left/right, 905/416, douchebag/hipster, everyone hates everyone else, paralysis-inducing war on something
No wonder nothing is ever accomplished.
Also as a cashier, the speed between cash and cards is not all that great, and many times cards are faster. With cash, many times they will try to unload some of their smaller coins which takes time, I have to put it away and get out their change and count it, etc. A card they just plug it in, enter their PIN, and are finished. With modern card readers, paying with debit or credit should be near instant.
The entire turnstile alignment and positioning of the booths MUST be rethought.