The Presto progress since the new date announcements two years ago (streetcars by end 2015, subway & buses by end 2016) has finally been much more impressive. After that newer announcement two years ago, they were on time deploying to all streetcars by end of 2015.
Based on the on-time TTC Presto report card for 2015, I no longer have doubt for TTC on-time deploy to the rest of the system by end of 2016. They *seem* to be deploying with different crews. One crew rips things up, another tech-certified crew installs, etc. Sometimes a lull between the crews but several station turnstiles are currently ripped up.
The TTC's
overall progress with Presto has been utterly appalling. I understand that they're much larger than the other regional systems that have Presto, but come on. And the whole thing about wanting to wait for the Gen 2 readers...I'm sorry, but I've been using Presto on GO, YRT, MiWay, and HSR (I know it's available on many others too) with Gen 1 and I've never had even the slightest problem with it nor found it wanting in any way.
According to Wikipedia, by August 2011 GO had Presto at every rail station (save for St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Guelph, Kitchener, and Allandale--not sure if all of those were even open then) and on all of their buses. Oakville, Burlington, MiWay, Brampton, HSR, and YRT also all had it system-wide; the vast majority of them had concession fares and GO co-fares, and I know that GO at least had monthly capping, not sure about caps/passes on the others as of that date.
The TTC had it at 11 stations, and on 0 streetcars/buses. That's pathetic.
From September 2011 until 2015 when the Pan-Am push happened, which is
more than 3 years, the TTC added 3 more subway stations, and the LFLRVs on 510. The lack of progress was astounding. OC Transpo, albeit with issues, and Durham added Presto in that time to their entire networks.
Since then, of course, in 2015, 11 more stations got Presto and many of them got the Self-Service Reload Kiosks, plus the entire streetcar network got Presto in a pretty smooth rollout. And that 12/31/2015 date for streetcars had, I believe, been moved up by a year (was supposed to be streetcars by end of 16, buses/subway stations end of 17, if I recall correctly), and most streetcars even had it earlier in December than the 31st. We've seen the readers on many different types of buses in testing since then, and I see no reason to expect they'll run into problems with it on buses if it works on streetcars--not really a significant difference that I know of, there, for getting Presto working. Number of vehicles, maybe, but nothing fundamental per-vehicle.
But the fact that there was a 3-year period where the TTC did basically nothing, while almost all of the other operators in the GTHA had near-100% coverage, is astounding. Presto will have been around in a substantial manner for ~5.5 years by the time the TTC has it at all stations/vehicles, so I certainly hope they finish this year...
Edit: regarding the Gen 2 Presto thing, my understanding was that the TTC's main reason for wanting it was compatability with open payments, i.e. tapping a debit or credit card right on the same Presto reader to pay a fare. However, they had those machines at College and at Dundas for a few months as a pilot a couple of years ago, and they haven't been seen since. In fact, the LFLRV onboard and offboard ticket vending machines have debit/credit tap payment, so it seems doubtful that the TTC will go through the trouble of duplicating that feature on the Presto readers that are about 2 feet away onboard the car. And subway collectors are going to take tap debit/credit for single rides soon, then they're supposed to have SRVMs in the stations too once the collectors are gone...so at this point, what did they even gain by waiting for Gen 2?
