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28 minutes ago, MCIBUS said:

Went to buy my Jan pass today. I was suspecting to pay $125, but ending up pay the same as I did in NOV? Correct me if I'm wrong here but wasn't there suppose to be a fair increase in Jan?

They stated in mid November that they “will not increase fares until 15 trains are running” 

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38 minutes ago, MCIBUS said:

Went to buy my Jan pass today. I was suspecting to pay $125, but ending up pay the same as I did in NOV? Correct me if I'm wrong here but wasn't there suppose to be a fair increase in Jan?

 

9 minutes ago, ZümmyZüm said:

They stated in mid November that they “will not increase fares until 15 trains are running” 


According to this release. 
 

Quote

A proposed 2.5 per cent general fare increase for OC Transpo will only come into effect one full month after 15 trains are made available by Rideau Transit Group (RTG) for revenue service on O-Train Line 1. 


Council approves the City’s 2022 budget, with focus on affordability

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  • 2 weeks later...
8 minutes ago, JCL said:

New PRESTO Card readers are being implemented in the new year.

There has been some Twitter chatter this morning, and OC has tweeted an illustrated mock-up of the new reader: https://twitter.com/OC_Transpo/status/1476218394718392321/photo/1

Saw the visual (good idea to show the tweet link preview). Attached here.

Especially with the multi-day passes on-board buses, it has to be shown to the operator on regular buses or front-door boarding. New units will also have the capacity of tapping like the turnstiles along Confederation and Trillium line stations according to the visual. 

Day passes/transfers having a special QR code to be scanned in to verify validity. 

 

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Love the new look, and I’m really glad that it’s not the same as some GTA agencies were getting with that tall bright green presto reader. The QR code will be a nice addition if it replaced the conventional showing the operator your daypass/transfer that’s been expired for 6 days but you just hide the letter codes because you’re a sneaky fare beater. Almost like the STMs transfer readers through their farebox, hopefully a lot faster though 

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  • 5 months later...

OC Transpo is rolling new payment devices on-board that can accommodate a lot more than simply Presto cards. Handling all fare media including barcode transfers and special event tickets. GTHA transit agencies along with Go Transit have already replaced their Presto devices on-board buses and stations after 10+ years of service with more modern features.

I remember when Presto first started rolling out on OC Transpo back in 2012 and if I recall correctly, 6401 was the first bus equipped with Presto devices at all doors. Taking a phased approach since there are hundreds of buses and thousands of devices that have to be installed and tested to ensure it will function properly.

Right now, Presto cards will work on the new fare devices. For those with transfers, day or multi-passes and special event tickets should still continue to show their fare media to the operator if boarding a bus until the rollout is complete and additional features are ready. 

 

Link to article: https://www.octranspo.com/en/news/article/new-fare-readers-on-buses/

 

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1 hour ago, GTAmissions1 said:

OC Transpo is rolling new payment devices on-board that can accommodate a lot more than simply Presto cards. Handling all fare media including barcode transfers and special event tickets. GTHA transit agencies along with Go Transit have already replaced their Presto devices on-board buses and stations after 10+ years of service with more modern features.

I remember when Presto first started rolling out on OC Transpo back in 2012 and if I recall correctly, 6401 was the first bus equipped with Presto devices at all doors. Taking a phased approach since there are hundreds of buses and thousands of devices that have to be installed and tested to ensure it will function properly.

Right now, Presto cards will work on the new fare devices. For those with transfers, day or multi-passes and special event tickets should still continue to show their fare media to the operator if boarding a bus until the rollout is complete and additional features are ready. 

 

Link to article: https://www.octranspo.com/en/news/article/new-fare-readers-on-buses/

 

I hope they put the new readers on both sides of the middle and rear doors of articulated and double-deck buses, to speed up tapping=on.

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On 6/21/2022 at 4:24 PM, GTAmissions1 said:

GTHA transit agencies along with Go Transit have already replaced their Presto devices on-board buses and stations after 10+ years of service with more modern features.

The GTA agencies with first generation (Thales) equipment are getting replacement units from Famoco. The TTC and OC Transpo got second generation equipment from Scheidt & Bachmann, and the TTC isn't replacing their readers at this time.

OC Transpo's new units are coming from Scheidt & Bachmann again, and are basically updated versions of the old one. Importantly, it moved the bus fare collection from being handled by PRESTO to OC Transpo's internal systems, which allows for a wider range of payment types to be used.

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On 6/21/2022 at 4:24 PM, GTAmissions1 said:

OC Transpo is rolling new payment devices on-board that can accommodate a lot more than simply Presto cards. Handling all fare media including barcode transfers and special event tickets. GTHA transit agencies along with Go Transit have already replaced their Presto devices on-board buses and stations after 10+ years of service with more modern features.

I remember when Presto first started rolling out on OC Transpo back in 2012 and if I recall correctly, 6401 was the first bus equipped with Presto devices at all doors. Taking a phased approach since there are hundreds of buses and thousands of devices that have to be installed and tested to ensure it will function properly.

Right now, Presto cards will work on the new fare devices. For those with transfers, day or multi-passes and special event tickets should still continue to show their fare media to the operator if boarding a bus until the rollout is complete and additional features are ready. 

 

Link to article: https://www.octranspo.com/en/news/article/new-fare-readers-on-buses/

 

It'll be interesting to see if these actually are faster than the current readers. When the STO replaced their readers recently, I found that the new readers were both much slower and considerably less "sensitive" than the old ones. On the old ones, you just kinda had to put your card anywhere on the target and BEEP! You were good to go. However, with thr new STO readers, you have to bring the card in a much smaller target and it takes considerably longer for the card to be beeped through.

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I ran into one of the new readers this afternoon on 4699 (running 40 Elmvale). Seemed to be working well and if anything read the card faster.

6 hours ago, dudebrains said:

It'll be interesting to see if these actually are faster than the current readers. When the STO replaced their readers recently, I found that the new readers were both much slower and considerably less "sensitive" than the old ones. On the old ones, you just kinda had to put your card anywhere on the target and BEEP! You were good to go. However, with thr new STO readers, you have to bring the card in a much smaller target and it takes considerably longer for the card to be beeped through.

 

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On 6/25/2022 at 10:49 AM, dudebrains said:

It'll be interesting to see if these actually are faster than the current readers. When the STO replaced their readers recently, I found that the new readers were both much slower and considerably less "sensitive" than the old ones. On the old ones, you just kinda had to put your card anywhere on the target and BEEP! You were good to go. However, with thr new STO readers, you have to bring the card in a much smaller target and it takes considerably longer for the card to be beeped through.

On 6/25/2022 at 4:54 PM, agb96 said:

I ran into one of the new readers this afternoon on 4699 (running 40 Elmvale). Seemed to be working well and if anything read the card faster.

 

What lagged the green readers most was the size of the screen, its low refresh rate, and the amount of information that had to be loaded and displayed with each tap. While the TTC's simply display a pass/fail message (unless that's changed in the last few years), OC's readers display fare deducted, remaining, etc. I believe Metrolinx also got us readers that were reaching deprecation anyway.

The newer reader seemed more powerful in trials. You'd hope it is, since it needs to do even more than the green ones.

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2 hours ago, Waiting for 30 Minutes said:

What lagged the green readers most was the size of the screen, its low refresh rate, and the amount of information that had to be loaded and displayed with each tap. While the TTC's simply display a pass/fail message (unless that's changed in the last few years), OC's readers display fare deducted, remaining, etc. I believe Metrolinx also got us readers that were reaching deprecation anyway.

TTC Presto devices show how much time is remaining on the transfer or the end date for a monthly pass effective last September. September 25th for buses and streetcars and October 4th for subway stations. This functionality was available from the beginning, but it was due to a legal challenge that the TTC decided to use the pass/fail exchange prior to that date. 

Original reason why this info was not shown is due to David Lepofsky who put up a legal challenge regarding card info being displayed for visually impaired users on TTC back in 2010. TTC simply just used the pass/fail message to get around the legal restriction imposed without more legal drama. Once Lepofsky retired is when TTC updated their devices to show card info on the Presto device.

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Has anyone noticed that in the last couple weeks the existing Presto readers have started giving out 105-minute (1:45) transfers during the day instead of the usual 90? I'm not complaining because that extra 15 minutes has definitely saved me a fare on more than one occasion, but I'm curious if this is a machine glitch or if OC Transpo quietly started extending transfer times because it's happened several times in the past few weeks. All of my trips were during the day on weekdays so it shouldn't have been a TOU thing.

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I'm pretty sure transfer times were extended in a council meeting awhile back, at least they were debating it.  Definitely think it's great to extend transfer time to reflect the size of the city and *lack of routes* the original 90 minutes would mostly cover before.

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I believe that council vote was only to study extending it to 2 hours starting with the 2023 budget. So maybe they decided in the interim to put this as a stopgap. I'm definitely happy with it since even with the inner city routes like the 11 and 14 it's still a bit hairy to run a bunch of errands and then make it back on one fare

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  • 2 weeks later...
27 minutes ago, Mark Walton said:

The other day I was on an Invero (didn't notice the #) with the new reader. I had to try it several times, and apparently land my card just-so, to get a green tap.

4477, 6363, 6430 and a Nova have the new readers as part of a “mini-fleet” to test before full switch over happens.

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