innsertnamehere
Superstar
it has been loaded onto my card less than 8 hours after doing the online deposit.
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My issue with online loading is the time it takes before the funds can be used. Metrolinx says it can take up to 24 hour before the funds are released to the card. Has anyone experienced shorter times?
apologies, but what is the problem with online loads? every time I load my card i do it online through interac and while it doesn't put it on my card until I tap, does it really matter? it's not like i can use the money until I tap anyways.
Not sure about a Tim card but I load my Starbucks card online instantly all the time.they can be loaded in person instantly.. can a Tims card be loaded instantly online? i agree that 24hrs is a bit long, but as I said I have loaded my card the night before and the balance was added the next morning.
For those that this seems to be an issue, the autoload is probably the solution. It's like magic ... every time it gets below the trigger value, it magically reloads. It's never failed to reload for me (but if it did, I'd notice, and then be able to sort it out before it got to 0).
they can be loaded in person instantly.. can a Tims card be loaded instantly online? i agree that 24hrs is a bit long, but as I said I have loaded my card the night before and the balance was added the next morning, less than 8 hours later.
Not sure about a Tim card but I load my Starbucks card online instantly all the time.
It's not really comparable though. Even Tim Horton's only has about 3,000 locations in Canada. TTC alone has over 2,400 buses and streetcars, and that's before you start counting stations, and other transit systems. Most importantly, the Tim Horton's and Starbucks are all hard-wired - and the buses may not even be in locations with mobile reception! Finally, the transaction time for buying the coffee can be relatively slow - 3-4 seconds wouldn't be that noticeable ... often seems to take 10-20 seconds with a credit card. Presto transaction time is 300 milliseconds - and if it's any slower you'll be problems with people boarding vehicles, and particularly on fare barriers in stations.Not sure about a Tim card but I load my Starbucks card online instantly all the time.
It's not really comparable though. Even Tim Horton's only has about 3,000 locations in Canada. TTC alone has over 2,400 buses and streetcars, and that's before you start counting stations, and other transit systems. Most importantly, the Tim Horton's and Starbucks are all hard-wired - and the buses may not even be in locations with mobile reception!
All TTC buses are location tracked via GPS; which requires frequently reporting their position upstream and do this every 20 to 30 seconds. It's pretty common for companies (UPS, FedEX, ...) with lots of vehicles to have near-real-time tracking l so I assume GO does too. If GO has tracking, they already have mobile uplinks in all of their vehicles.
Receiving a data burst every 10 minutes would be sufficient to handle card loads, and there will be very few places where they go 10 minutes without a network linkup and GO already knows exactly where those areas are. It's the places where buses disappear from their near-real-time position tracking system.
I fully understand why people don't like the 24 hour load time, but we really don't know why those particular architectural choices were made. It may have been a choice of convenience, doing something slightly easier instead of doing the right thing, or it may have been something that was absolutely necessary given technical issues.
My issue with online loading is the time it takes before the funds can be used. Metrolinx says it can take up to 24 horus before the funds are released to the card. Has anyone experienced shorter times?
I use the Self-Serve Kiosk at Union Station to load my card. It's convenient and easy to use. Hopefully Metrolinx will rollout more kiosks in the future.
True, but Presto was NOT designed by or for GO. It was quite independently designed, and given the need to support multiple agencies, the designers might have decided not to rely on agency-specific IT infrastructure. At the time that it was designed, GO was a separate agency from Presto (which was in MTO) and the other agencies were and remain even more separate. Even today, there are very real distinctions between GO and Presto within Metrolinx.
Uh, hang on. I've seen reports that the new faregates they had to install to handle Compass at only 47 Skytrain station cost $170 million alone. And that doesn't include any of the buses or the back end for the system.David, I know Presto is a fucked up design but this is insanity for a $1B installation. We're getting far less of a result than Vancouver is with their $100M project.