12-24-2023, 05:47 PM
(12-24-2023, 09:06 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: You're right but you're wrong. Yes, there are certain expectations, but bravado is right the limitations of our payment card here is EXTREMELY well advertised especially in this forum. It's totally possible to forget it (especially because it is inconsistent--going to a machine is instantaneous). And being angry at customer service is entirely unwarranted.
Yes, I would hope someone on this forum paid enough attention to not miss that detail. But frankly when you are designing a product for a mass audience you just have to accept that education and warnings simply don't work. A very large portion of people don't read instructions or details, they just operate on intuition.
I don't condone anger or berating anyone, customer service or not (we are all people regardless of what we're doing...). But I do think GRT customer service and bus operators should understand this common limitation of the system. I would prefer them giving out free rides over potentially losing a customer for life, so long as abuse of the system can be kept in check. Or better yet, give operators the option to force cards without a balance into the negative (perhaps up to a certain limit where it's clear the customer is just trying to be a cheat).
(12-24-2023, 09:06 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Edit: I should clarify, I replied to to dtkvictim because I wanted to include the earlier comment, but this following is a broad reply generally and not directed at any one specific person.
This part I do not get. There are MANY problems with EasyGO--even if we leave aside the IMMENSE teething problems it had (remember when they wiped their entire database and started again? FFS!), and leave aside that it was late to deploy, and even after they were deployed the equipment broke constantly.
They DO NOT work well now. The 24-48 hour delay is ONE problem. I also was unable to pay for the train, because for some reason the fare machine will not accept my TD debit card, nor my TD Visa, nor my Wise Visa, nor my ING (Dutch) Visa. I have FOUR payment cards and not one would work...what kind of bullshit is that. I was able to use three of the cards in every previous part of my trip including boarding multiple transit systems in the GTA.
And of course, Presto has already moved onto supporting visa and debit cards directly for boarding, something that is, if not world leading, is at least a stand out feature...and something that EasyGO doesn't even have on the radar (I'd be shocked if council even knows it's a thing...since I doubt any of them are remotely interested in transit), and who the fuck knows how much it will cost us to pay our incredibly incompetent contractor to build.
Honestly, I don't understand the hatred of presto. Yes, they didn't bid, because that's not what they do. If we were going to choose presto it wouldn't have been through the bidding process. I don't know why people here find that so inconceivable. A dozen other transit agencies have done so, why the fuck are we so special?! This is nothing more than a shitty excuse for not choosing presto.
By the way, accepting cash fares and transit passes isn't hard. London (who also chose to implement their own stupidly incompatible, but yet exactly the same transit fare card) accepts both cards and cash (and tickets too for that matter). They do it by having two boxes on the bus...it isn't complicated.
And of course, now if you travel to Toronto, you need two separate transit cards with two separate stored dollar value accounts...how much bullshit is that.
I know presto had issues before...SO DID EASYGO!...in both cases those issues are largely solved, but while presto now works mostly smoothly, supports some advanced features, and is a path forward towards greater integration and modernization of fare payment in Ontario, but we're stuck with our shitty and expensive custom solution, that isolates us from Toronto, and will cost us a fortune to custom implement anything that presto already has.
All because presto wouldn't play by our special rules and bid in the process that we (and we alone) decided was the ONLY way to select a fare payment processor. Why anyone here (hell anyone outside the region's bureaucracy) uses this bullshit justification...I will never know.
It boggles my mind that there are still people who think Presto would be a bad thing. For god sakes, I cannot believe you are making me agree with ac3r. I certainly don't think we're ever going to switch...GRT is probably the reason I am going to have to keep carrying cash when I travel...
Thanks for the clarification lol. But for the record, I am not opposed to Presto at all. I even have a card from living in Ottawa which would have been nice to reuse and benefit from interoperability.
That's a shame to hear that payment issues still exist. I had the issue you're describing for a very long time at specifically City Hall Station; I assumed something wrong with that terminal. I actually failed to pay for my trip because of that once, and the fare checkers were "fair" checkers in this case, understanding that their issues aren't my fault.
My personal experience was that issues like that had been resolved and the new terminal software works way better. I hadn't seen others complaining online anymore either, so I could only assume EasyGO was at least working adequately at large.