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I know one area that makes it more complicated is the regional aspect of this. There's seven participating municipalities I believe, and each one has their own local + commuter fare structures. So the system needs to be able to dynamically calculate a lot of different fares for you if you're travelling throughout the region, and my friend who works as a transit planner in the region says it's really complicated under the hood. I don't know whether it's contributing to the problems they're facing though.
The software side can be tricky, but wholly solvable since they aren't integrating with existing legacy payment systems. They are building from scratch.
Agreed, it's a big shame. They partly fixed it by keeping the scanners on even when the buses are moving, so there's no delay to board/alight while waiting for the machine to register the doors opening. But that delay between scans is a pain. I wonder how they can find a balance between letting people know that their scans worked (and if they did not work, why they didn't) while quickly letting the next person scan as well. It could be a time delay they manually set? If so, perhaps they can keep the delay, but allow it to be overridden by the next person who scans. That could allow things to happen organically, where someone has the message if they need it, but if the next person scans, that probably means the first person's scan went through and they moved on from the scanner.
Yeah but this exists in most cities. Many to a MUCH larger extent.
Indeed, the unique mix of software and hardware platforms are often where the issues lie.
Are they building from scratch? I thought they were locked in with a vendor, which may be part of the delays.
It's been disappointing to see how few readers have been installed at the LRT stations so far. McKernan only has two sets, Corona only has a handful, etc. And their placement is often horrible. It wouldn't be as terrible if the pillar with two readers were right by entrance at a place like McKernan, or in the centre of the area at the top of the escalators at a station like Corona. But instead, they're either further along the platform, or off to the side of the room, meaning the vast majority of people need to go out of their way to use it.
Sure, I can tap my card. But oh wait, I'm getting out of the front car, and the only scanner is halfway down the platform behind me.
Exactly this. Any city with a successful smart card system makes it easy. There should be at least one scanner at every single entrance / exit to the platform. Full stop, if you have to go out of your way to scan out, you're already handcuffing your system from day 1.
At Churchill on the concourse level? Way more than 1. It's just only 1 visible in that pic.
McKernan/ Belgravia is a very low use station. Do you think it needs more?
