[kEiThZ]

Think it probably would be easier to wait for each passenger to be scanned upon entry of any vehicle and customize each charge per customer based on whichever trip they happen to take and rack up their personal charges that way. That of course would be completely fair.

...and extremely complex to operate and implement.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Yea but eventually in perhaps 30 years or so there probably will be systems like that.

 

[GregWTravels]

In London, England, tube and rail travel is zoned, but buses are not. Of course, there is no free transfer from buses to the tube, which I don't think would fly in Toronto.

What I think might work for trips across municipal boundaries is the following. Subway and GO transit within GTA is zoned. 416 could be 2 zones, and then zones would radiate out from there. The price for a subway or train ride through 1 or 2 zones is the same, and then it increases with each zone you go through after that. That way trips within Toronto are still one fare, a trip from Mississauga to Etobicoke would be a single fare, a trip from Mississauga to downtown Toronto would pay another amount.

For buses, it is a single, flat fare regardless of distance or crossing municipal boundaries. A bus down Hurontario would cost the same as a bus from Square One to York University.

If you transfer from a bus to the subway or GO Train, you'd then be charged fare by zone.

Greg

 

[sjc]

Also you have to consider that many of the most "disadvantaged" people in Toronto live far from the core in places like Rexdale, Jane-Finch, Malvern, etc. Would the fare zones still be a good idea if they force a lot of these people to pay a higher fare? On the other hand, the people who would most likely experience lower fares from a zonal system, the people in the inner city, are probably the ones who need the fare reduction the least.

Then perhaps the fair thing to do would be to set fares based inversely on distance, so that it costs more to go a short distance (for example, College and Yonge to Dundas and Yonge would cost $4) and less to go a long way (Jane and Finch to Union would cost $0.10).

 

[urbandreamer]

How about pay by income and distance traveled?

Also, why not sell "virtual" tokens--aka, via an iphone or blackberry app? As you go by the turnstile it automatically would deposit a "virtual" token.

 

[sixrings]

plus itll keep the poor on the fringes.. keep people in places with whom they are suppose to hang out... rich with rich poor with poor. Itll help unmotivate some on the fringes to consider getting jobs downtown that actually pay them more than minimum wage. PLus we will have less shootings at our downtown foot lockers...

 

[Justin10000]

^^You should be banned for that. You're an idiot for even posting that.

 

[tkip]

WtF

plus itll keep the poor on the fringes.. keep people in places with whom they are suppose to hang out... rich with rich poor with poor. Itll help unmotivate some on the fringes to consider getting jobs downtown that actually pay them more than minimum wage. PLus we will have less shootings at our downtown foot lockers...

This is some kind of joke, righ?

I mean someone couldn't actually be this ignorant and prejudiced and clearly delusional that that they would post this kind of sick garbage and be taken seriously.

Clearly I must have somehow misunderstood the post and message, right?

 

[Justin10000]

I hope I misunderstood the post too.

 

[GraphicMatt]

I am reasonably sure he was being sarcastic.

I think we need some kind of fare-by-distance system, though I agree that implementation is challenging. The TTC can't sell local transit when a short trip down the road costs $3/person both ways. People often focus too much on the TTC being purely a commuter service, but it's easy to see why - the current fare structure encourages it.

 

[TOareaFan]

This is about Toronto suburbs(North York, Etobicoke, Scarborough) that are served by the TTC. Not about burbs outside the 416. You completely missed the point of the thread.

I don't think I missed the point....I did extend the point beyond just the TTC because my idea of charging more for a subway ride of "X"km than a bus ride of the same length is also workable on GO using rail versus buses.

Within the "416" there are lots of examples of places equal distance from the core where people are being charged the same fare for using TTC whether they happen to have been blessed with a subway or if they are restricted to buses/streetcars.

Others have suggested fare by distance (and I don't think you or anyone else termed that as "silly") I am just saying that should be overlayed with time as well....not all 10km rides (on any transit system) are created equally.

And your idea of charging based on speed, and transit mode will probably make the fare system complex enough to drive riders to driving. The idea is to make transit user friendly, and convenient. Not to force riders to calculate how much they will be spending depending on how fast they reach their destination. It's silly to even bring the idea of charging fares based on speed.

In a presto world (or equivalent) how difficult would it be? Tap going on a bus $2...tap going on a streetcar $2.50...tap going on a subway $3....if your trip takes part of two (or all 3 modes) the system will calculate a weighted average of the three.

GO transit is a regional operator, and having a zonal system makes sense. Telling riders they have to pay more to ride a local operator just because they live so many km from a city core(Brampton, Mississauga, whatever) is not going to make transit attractive to riders, especially if the service is poor.

In the burbs that you mention it would have very little impact....they already pay local transit (which is all buses) to get to GO (well, those that don't drive to the GO) so the Presto system would just operate as it is currently planned to do. Where it would make a difference is in, say, Meadowvale where people feel that they should have trains off-peak but GO does not provide them. They currently pay the same fare on GO whether they get to the station in time for a train or if they are shunted off to a bus.....in my idea/world they would see a different fare from GO if they were tapping onto a bus as opposed to a train.

 

[DavidH]

Yea but eventually in perhaps 30 years or so there probably will be systems like that.

This is a solved problem.

PRESTO will support most of that needed functionality for GO Transit right from the beginning. When you board a GO bus, it will determine what zone you are in by GPS, and the same when you exit, using the zones to calculate the fare by looking them up from a table.

A true fare by distance without the zonal lookup would probably require additional support in Presto, but it's actually simpler because you don't have to maintain a large lookup table of all possiible interzonal trips. You just calculate the distance based on gps readings and boarding and exit, and then multiply by a fare factor.

At any rate, a zonal system gradually approximates a fare by distance system as the size of the zones decreases.

Honestly, this isn't a hard thing to do with a fare card system. Compared to all of the things Presto has to support today, it would almost certainly be a fairly straightforward set of changes.

 

[sixrings]

sure I was being sarcastic. But what were proposing is simply going to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. I lived downtown and you know what the solution is to wanting to go 4 or 5 stops. Its not complainning that its unfair its realizing that i am privledged enough to live downtown and I can afford a metropass even if I dont actually justify owning one. I bought metropasses simply to support the system tho I am sure months I maybe broke even but most likely got screwed. Its the same as why richer people pay higher taxes. The thought is that they are privledged and should be able to give more back to the city. All this would cause is that the allready rich downtown gets more and more unaccessable from anyone outside a certain class. I understand what some ppl are saying well ppl dont like paying 3 bucks to ride the bus a few stops either.. OK how about this instead of charging based on zones charge based on vehicle type. Bus 1$ streetcar 1.50 $ Lrt/Subway $2. Or how about just getting the governement to give more to the city for transit. How about for a second takingall our anger that we have from bad TTC employees bad managers and direct that to the federal and municiple government about the lack of justice for our transit system. Or how about TOLL roads!!!! I just think a zone based system is criminal when for the most part (yes there are always exceptions) but more and more the rich people are moving downtown and the poor are being sent out to the fringes. A zone based system just makes matters worse. One final example. I knew a young girl. Sure she could have made better decisions. She was in affordable housing. But the housing was located someone central to the city. She was able to get downtown work and take care of her kid. Then they moved her to the very top of the city where it took her about a hour and ahalf to get to work. Guess what happened. And again I understand she didnt make the best choices to begin with, she stopped working. This will become a problem for our city. We talk about mix use and everyone should be able to have equal transit. But suggestions like this are against that. Ive lived in toronto my whole life. The gap between the rich and the poor has grown significantly. I dont like the idea that we could be growing it more when we should be looking at alternative solutions.

 

[sixrings]

I should say that maybe this to most ppl doesnt appear to be a social justice issue. And I can see how some are saying well theyll be able to take a short bus ride for cheap so they should be happy. I understand. Im just concerned that if we continue the way were going we are making more and more difficult for working families to get by and easier and easier for those with means to.. Totally un related but when I was a kid there were basketball nets at every school. Then all the nets came down. Well the only kids who have nets now are kids who have parents who have enough money to have their own driveways. Things like this make people without means often feel isolated. There was a good documentary called invisible city talking about region park a downtown neighbourhood disconnected from the city. All Im saying is that we need to make sure were careful were not building more barriers. That being said as long as metro passes exist i dont see a issue. AS long as the longest commute is still in the 250 area its ok... but if you want to charge 5$ to get from rexdale to downtown.. sure it could appear as fair, but that doesnt mean its right to do. Its not like these people purposely moved out to no mans land like their 905 neighbours. 905 did it on purpose. They had a choice. The fringe of the 416 tho is more often then not made up of people who wish they were more central.

 

[tkip]

I am definitely not in favour of a zone fare system. Not at this present time. It would be grossly unfair to too many riders struggling to get from one point in this city to another. I know it existed before in the TTC' past but I would imagine that riders would go ballastic if someone tried to seriously introduce it again.

At $3 cash fares and a single fare taking forever to get across this city, who in their right mind would support a zone fare system when the travel time and transfers are a nightmare for so many? I have friends who have gone back to their cars again because of the sheer time involved in getting around with transit.

Or they bought electric bikes to avoid taking the TTC, period. Expand the system drastically so that all areas of the city are eventually covered with enough lines of rapid transit and then we can talk a zone fare system.