Grand River Transit

[bravado]

But for at least the last decade people think of a "payment cards" of any kind as an instantaneous and usable anywhere. I'd wager over 80% of the population doesn't know and doesn't care to know that payment terminals in shops are internet connected, and so the thought that payment terminals on busses aren't connected but would need to be isn't a logical train of thought for them. Today it's even expected for mobile/popup shops, food trucks, etc. to accept credit and debit payments backed by mobile connections, and most cash only places obviously take a hit.

If you build a product that goes against consumer expectations for technical reasons, that's fine, but you need to be sympathetic to the position you've put your customer in. Have some humility and shame, not anger towards the confused customer (and customer service should reflect that, short of accepting abuse whether verbal or of the system).

The point I was trying to make with a short pithy comment is that we deserve services that work together. A transit pass that adds speedbumps and arbitrary limitations and doesn't work with neighbours just isn't a compelling product. A functioning transit pass lets you use all transit whenever and wherever you want, but little municipal fiefdoms and small-mindedness have very different ideas of what they think a good system is. The "customer" actually is always right, regardless of how hard it is to set up a payment system or deploy it...

When I spent $ on transit, I don't care which government is getting my money and which borders I am crossing - I want that money to work on all transit for my benefit as a customer. Anything else is a pointless inconvenience. A GRT manager or councillor that picks our own homegrown solution is deliberately making their users' experience worse, because the customer experience isn't actually something that's high on their list of priorities.