TTC reveals even more problems with PRESTO

The TTC slowly started rolling out PRESTO and by the end of last year, all streetcars came equipped with these new fare-collecting machines. But, as the Toronto Star reports today, there have been some ongoing problems with them, namely that at least five to six per cent of them are down at any given time.

Last week, the TTC conducted an audit on the streetcar PRESTO machines because the automatic system that's supposed to detect when they go down hasn't been working properly.

Metrolinx's Executive Vice President for PRESTO Robert Hollis told the Star he's not happy with these results. Meanwhile, the TTC worries that the percentage of malfunctioning machines could be even higher than the five to six number.

This, of course, isn't the first hiccup for PRESTO on the TTC. The TTC previously planned to eliminate tokens and Metropasses by mid-2017 but has since pushed that date back due to software problems, something which appears to be the culprit again in a different form.

The rollout continues and more and more subway stations are slowly getting PRESTO gates. So far, as the Star notes, out of the 38 million trips taken on the TTC last, 5.4 per cent of them were paid for by using PRESTO.

Photo by Mr. Dan Mofo in the blogTO Flickr pool.