12-23-2023, 09:31 PM
(12-22-2023, 11:35 AM)Rainrider22 Wrote: After my dealing with GRT yesterday, I would hazard a guess they would say "finders keepers, loosers weepers"....
My 14 yr old daughter went to get on the bus yesterday after school, she tapped her card and it didn't have enough money for fare. She calls me and I immediately added more money. I also added the auto load feature so this doesn't happen again. I text her and tell her to jump on the next bus. She does and it didn't work. My daughter is a rule follower so she gets off again and calls me crying. I sent her a screen shot of the paid receipt for the fare, I explained to her to try the next bus and tell the driver her dad added money and here is the receipt for it. In the mean time, I will call Customer Service. What a joke that was. I explained the situation, they said oh, it takes 24 to 48 hours to load onto the card, that's just the way the system is. I explained that "The System" had no problem taking my money from Visa immediately, so there fore I should be able to utilize a service for which I have paid. She says, sorry, it doesn't work like that. I say what is the work around. She says nothing. I explain that I work out of town, my wife works with patients and cant just get up and leave so we need to figure something out. I ask for a supervisor, she says no supervisor, I ask for the manger, she says no manager. I say, how many people working around you right now (3:15pm on a Wed), She say approx 8. I say so 8 employees working in a government office and no supervision for accountability and safety of the regions employees.... Silence. I say or do you mean the manager and the supervisor went out for a Christmas lunch, or they are both doing personal business on company time ? again silence. I ask for the director of the area, she say she doesn't know who it is. I say fine. Call your dispatch and tell them there will be a cute 14 year old girl at the particular stop and time trying to get on the bus, please tell the driver to let her on as a courtesy. She says no I cant do that. Just then my daughter texted me to say that she got on the bus. She did what I asked her too and the driver was super kind and polite and said absolutely you can ride.... So at least the boots on the ground people are able to make reasonable decisions, but the people in "Customer Service" not so much... but what do you want when they have absentee leaders...
Sorry, but that was my first experience with GRT management and it was horrible.. "That's the way the system works"... well your system is fucked. In todays technology everything up dates as soon old visa takes the charge... How about looking into new technology, pair with GO Transit passes. Create an app that uploads immediately and you just tap your phone... Too many people just doing the same old the same old way. I bet the people in Customer Service don't even use transit......then there is that !!!!
So, while I understand your frustration, this has been explained many times by GRT and by people on many social media platforms, including WRC.
The buses do not have internet connections. How do you expect the loading to go from you using the website and end up at the bus?
When a bus gets back to the barn at the end of the day, the mechanic giving it the once over sets the farebox to a WiFi AP at the barn. At that point in time it uploads a record of all transactions it did, and downloads a bundle of updates, such as you adding funds to your daughter's card.
The next day when the bus is out on the road and your daughter taps on, the farebox will apply the update to her card and set a flag. The flag is for if your daughter tapos on a second bus so that farebox can see the updated has already been apply and doesn't erroneously add the stored value a second time.
From then on, your daughter can tap her card and have deductions made like normal.
Of course, this obviously only works if you go to the website and add the funds before the bus gets back to the barn.
If you added the funds in the afternoon, but the bus she tries to tap on the next day had been returned to the barn at noon, then it will not have the update for her card. It would need to go back to the barn on more time to get the updates.
That's why GRT says 24 to 48 hours.
It is a technical limitation you cannot solve without having internet connections on the buses and the fareboxes updating constantly. Plus, because of the batch nature of financial processes, even with an internet connection out on the road, the update needsto be formatted and bunded into an update and sent to the farebox. So even then it wouldn't be available right away.
Customer Service can't do bugger all about this, and it is unfair of you to be angry at them for it. YTA, full stop, for that behaviour.
They were exactly right to tell you only "that's how it works" and no manager or supervisor would have been able to do a damn thing about it for you. Did you expect them to reach out with a magic wand and enchant either your daughter's card with the stored value, or the farebox of the next bus with the update for it?