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Assuming there's phone service underground.

Phone service (or a SIM Card for that matter) is not required.

To experience this system, download CIBC's payment application onto your blackberry and load on your CIBC credit or debit card. Walk over to your favourite grocery store, mcdonalds, etc. with a paypass/paywave system and buy your stuff using your phone.

https://www.cibc.com/ca/features/mobile-payment.html?WT.mc_id=IntMobileSol-Carousel-MobilePayment-E

In theory, this should also work at the new Presto machine in College station (I think it was College).


Other banks (Royal, BMO, Scotia, etc.) and Android compatible versions will be released over the next 6 months.

Presto will likely be one of the last to be loadable onto a phone.
 
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Why does Toronto pretend presto is some sort of modern cutting edge transit techology when in fact the rest of the world including developing countries have been using similar card since 1995?
While it took other cities a few months to a year to fully adopt this, it takes Toronto 10 years, and people seem to be celebrating.
 
Why does Toronto pretend presto is some sort of modern cutting edge transit techology when in fact the rest of the world including developing countries have been using similar card since 1995?
While it took other cities a few months to a year to fully adopt this, it takes Toronto 10 years, and people seem to be celebrating.

2nd Generation Presto (what Ottawa and TTC are getting) is about as modern as it gets for a payment system with some legacy baggage from the 1st phase and overpriced due to the contractor.

2nd Gen is open payment based and should be compatible with all devices (cards, phones, and other) implementing that communication mechanism.

Hopefully they don't do something stupid like lock down the account numbers which are allowed to buy monthly passes to the Presto specific cards rather than the more general accounts. Nothing in the technology would require this; it would be a management decision only.


1st Generation Presto (what GO got) is crap.
 
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Q: If debit and credit cards can be used as well and they are getting rid of tokens, does this mean that individual fares will now be the same cost as prepaid fares, or will cash be more expensive than debit/credit/smart card? I think it would be best to deduct (under today's fare system) $3 if one uses a debit or credit card, and $2.60 if they use a Presto card since it encourages people to get the card and thus take transit more often. Presto essentially becomes a kind of 'transit discount/loyalty card' system.

However if it is the former, one advantage is that it would bring the break even point for passes down to 42 rides from 49. This makes getting a Metropass or a period pass on Presto much more attractive, and something they really need to do since they are looking to move towards 2 hour transfers thus making the current monthly pass even less competitive.
 
2nd Generation Presto (what Ottawa and TTC are getting) is about as modern as it gets for a payment system with some legacy baggage from the 1st phase and overpriced due to the contractor.

2nd Gen is open payment based and should be compatible with all devices (cards, phones, and other) implementing that communication mechanism.

Hopefully they don't do something stupid like lock down the account numbers which are allowed to buy monthly passes to the Presto specific cards rather than the more general accounts. Nothing in the technology would require this; it would be a management decision only.


1st Generation Presto (what GO got) is crap.

Is this "open payment" option really necessary? How many of us are really interested in paying a $2.6 fare with credit card/debit card/phones? You need to take out your wallet and your bank card every time paying a fare, mostly in front to hundreds of other strangers during rush hours, isn't it a safety issue?

The London type of oyster card is the best system I have encountered so far, with peak and off peak pricing, fare zones and daily and monthly cap. I think TTC should not only adopted fare zones, but differentiate peak and off peak pricing as well.
 
balenciaga,

I feel your statement is a common theme on this forum and in criticisms of Toronto. Sometimes the devil is in the details and we lose perspective if we take a Toronto versus the whole world stance. Presto-like systems exist throughout the world but they often suck, even in some of the world's top cities. Sometimes the biggest and best cities are the latest adopters of new systems. Sometimes that subway line on a map of a global city is a line that only runs TTC streetcar sized vehicles every 35 minutes. Sometimes...
 
Is it possible for Presto to ever be integrated with Near Field Communication chips in mobile phones? Mobile payments with NFC have really been taking off and it would be crazy for Metolinx not to jump on the opportunity. If Metrolinx would develop a simple mobile app, riders would be able to take out their phones, tap it on the the reader and be on their way. It certainly would be much faster than digging through your wallet since most people can whip out their phones in three seconds or less and at least on the Android platform the user doesn't even need to launch the app for it to work (depending on how the app is written).
 
Is this "open payment" option really necessary? How many of us are really interested in paying a $2.6 fare with credit card/debit card/phones? You need to take out your wallet and your bank card every time paying a fare, mostly in front to hundreds of other strangers during rush hours, isn't it a safety issue?

The London type of oyster card is the best system I have encountered so far, with peak and off peak pricing, fare zones and daily and monthly cap. I think TTC should not only adopted fare zones, but differentiate peak and off peak pricing as well.


Yes, it is necessary just for a cost issue. OpenPayment is a global standard for tap based payment systems and by using it you can use off-the-shelf readers and off-the-shelf cards from a large number of different vendors.

Rolling your own is significantly more expensive, particularly if you want to take advantage of the paper-less receipt component (printed receipts will not exist in 5 years).


All Open Payment does is allow you to identify account X. What you do with account X, what you charge and when, is entirely up to the retailer (TTC in this case).

Rewards, price caps, passes, etc. are an implementation of the software backend. Open Payment is a standardized mechanism for identifying a customers account.


That said, phone compatibility is going to be extremely important in a few years. A physical wallet filled with cards is going to be as common in 2020 as watches are today; and it will be a generational thing just as there is an entire generation who has never worn a watch.


Vancouvers CompassCard system is an example of a wholly OpenPayment based platform. They've decided to market their own cardstock and downplay that users may use other vendor accounts to pay their bill. It's a marketing play.


London has been benchmarking the OpenPayment phone mechanisms and decided they're too slow. They need a transaction to occur in less than 500 milliseconds which current phones are not capable of BUT they are deploying a next generation Oyster reader which accepts contactless EMV bank cards. EMV stands for Europay, Mastercard, and Visa; a sub-set of OpenPayment devices we know as Paywave/Paypass.

It was supposed to be deployed by the Olympics, but they missed that deadline.
 
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...they are deploying a next generation Oyster reader which accepts contactless EMV bank cards. EMV stands for Europay, Mastercard, and Visa; a sub-set of OpenPayment devices we know as Paywave/Paypass.
...and Interac Flash. If Presto gets that capability, Interac Flash might be the best way to pay the equivalent of cash in the future.
 
"For example, the TTC’s transfer system is unique, and Presto has to be adapted to it, said McCuaig."

Oh, FFS ... TTC's transfer system is completely boneheaded, and surely it should simply be modernized, and Presto shouldn't be modified to do that. Am I really going to still have to pay one fare to take the bus to the bank right next to the subway station to get money to top up my Presto Card at the subway station, and the pay a second fare to enter the subway station next to the bank?

I agree. Funny how the TTC's transfer policy is now "unique" when the rigid one-way, transfer at transfer points only, up to the driver's interpretation used to be used everywhere, until Mississauga started the "two-hour" transfer (which wasn't really two hours, but a step forward) and the rest of the GTA signed on.
 
Is it possible for Presto to ever be integrated with Near Field Communication chips in mobile phones? Mobile payments with NFC have really been taking off and it would be crazy for Metolinx not to jump on the opportunity. If Metrolinx would develop a simple mobile app, riders would be able to take out their phones, tap it on the the reader and be on their way. It certainly would be much faster than digging through your wallet since most people can whip out their phones in three seconds or less and at least on the Android platform the user doesn't even need to launch the app for it to work (depending on how the app is written).

Hell nevermind with that. Lets start with writing an app that will update your presto balance like the special readers at Union do (the remote urban readers only read the balance off the card and do not verify back at presto HO). This way one could update their balance on their own rather than having to trek to an updater.
 
Hell nevermind with that. Lets start with writing an app that will update your presto balance like the special readers at Union do (the remote urban readers only read the balance off the card and do not verify back at presto HO). This way one could update their balance on their own rather than having to trek to an updater.

I wholeheartedly agree with this one, I think the average person doesn't understand why it takes 24 hours to load your card online, the system needs to propagate to the card itself. An app like this would solve the problem quite a bit.
 
I wholeheartedly agree with this one, I think the average person doesn't understand why it takes 24 hours to load your card online, the system needs to propagate to the card itself. An app like this would solve the problem quite a bit.

I don't think that would work. My understanding is that it's not just that the system needs to propogate an updated balance to the card, their payment system doesn't appear to update anything, anywhere, until an overnight batch process is run. The call centre staff don't even know if you add money on-line. An app will have the same issue. Until the payment system tells the database you added money, you can't use that balance. No one has been able to explain why it has to be this way.
 
As far as I am concern, Presto back end is, has been and will be a problem providing real time info and transaction for everyone.

Any transaction done with your debit or credit at an ATM or store today shows up within seconds or a minute to allow everyone to know what has taken places with a stock of a few keys.

Presto should not only be able to do fare loading and use in real time, it should be able to track riders movement as to load and off load point, routes travel of a rider. At the same time, it can provide info as to how many riders are on a vehicle at any given time, where ridership is high on a route, number of riders travel on an X route throwout the day as well time.

This info helps planners a schedules to deal with quality of service faster and to make better use of resources than what takes place today.

The current Presto system is outdated and the sooner it upgrade to #2, it will make people life at lot easier using the card regardless what it is.

Having spent a fair amount of traveling in Europe this summer, Toronto would be zone 1 for most of the 22 systems I saw and rode. Downtown would never be consider being zone 1 in the first place and people need to live with the idea that your 1-3 stop trips are very costly than a longer trip.

A fare by distance in Toronto is pure discrimination, as its pitting the well off to the ones who are force to live outside the core since it too costly to live there now than 25 years ago.

Since I grownup in cabbage town which was run down at the time, you cannot live in that area today on the same amount of money back then to the point you have to move further out of the area to live these days.

Another thing that has not taken into consideration is the amount of time a long distance riders has to travel compare to short haul ones and how much their time is worth. One of the new commissioners has requested that management look at a rider cost and then compare it to quality of service. By doing so, you will find that riders time is worth more than the fare cost as well quality of service.
 
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