T

[sen_no_ongaku]

Hey Bostonians,

I'm curious -- how have people found the T's new fare collection system?

Comments

[ethicsgradient.livejournal.com]

Sux.

[sen-no-ongaku.livejournal.com]

Detail?

[ethicsgradient.livejournal.com]

I suppose my beef is with the new turnstyles more than the parts of the system that would actually collect your cash: I haven't used those.

The new turnstyles, or gates, or whatever, have some issues. Two primary ones, in my mind.

1) They do not eat cards that have no remaining cash, causing people to be given back empty, and now useless, tickets. People tend to discard these tickets on the ground near the gate. This is going to be alleviated to some degree by the new 'smart cards' that will be refillable.

2) They're wicked slow. The time between inserting your card and actually walking through the gate, while not an eternity, is long enough to make you have to stop and wait. The old mechanical turnstyles were much faster. Slide your card and go. Every day I demonstrate my displeasure with the new system by trying to get to the doors before they open, causing the machine to make angry noises at me.

On the bright side, the new system allows many more opportunities for fare jumping. Stand really close to a person going through and you can make it through before the doors close, or, in the wider handicapped gates you can go in as someone else is going out. This did save me time once at Kendall where I would likely have missed the train if I hadn't rushed through.

Also, the new machines on the busses that read the new cards are quite a bit slower than the old system where you would just slide your card through a slot a la a credit card machine. The new ones take your card in, read it, and spit it back out, more like an atm machine.

I'm hearing rumors that the new smartcards will have some sort of RFID chip so you can just walk past the reader and enter, but I'm not sure I believe it yet.

Additionally, the transition was handled quite poorly. There was a period of time where the red line had some old and some new readers, and the old readers wouldn't read the new cash based tickets (the new monthly passes worked fine in both). This caused great confusion for people who were trying to use their new style cash tickets to get into old style stations.

[ltlbird.livejournal.com]

The bus thing does suck. I ride a very busy bus line to and from work, and the drivers have mostly just been waving everyone through (usually just those with a pass, but the other day I had to pay with cash - I had forgotten to pick up my pass at work - and the driver waved me on when I tried to put in my dollar.) I can't imagine the T makes enough money for that to be a good idea, since it makes it easy for people with an expired pass to get on the bus, but it does prevent delays when 10+ people need to get on the bus.

I second the annoyance over the transition, since I once bought a ticket and wasn't able to use it on my return trip, since the station wasn't equipped with a schmancy gate for it.

[cute-fuzzy-evil.livejournal.com]

One of those damn things closed on me once on my way out of Alewife, and I've been freaked out by them ever since.

[silvarwyrm.livejournal.com]

I agree with ethicsgradient on his two points. The machines should eat cards that are used up, and they should process cards and open gates MUCH faster. The subway isn't as bad; the bus thing is horrible.

As for the transition, I never had a problem. But then, I always had a monthly pass, so I could get in anywhere without trouble. I think people who bought multiple use cards got screwed for a time, though. They would buy them at an updated station, and then try to use them at an old station. There was no way for fare collectors at the old stations to read the cards or determine how much money was left, and since the machines don't eat used-up cards, people could have conceivably been trying to cheat the system by passing through old-style stations with used-up cards. But, I imagine and hope the T mostly decided to eat the losses from that, and chalk it up to the perils of transition.

In other news, I totally believe the Charlie card quick scan thing. I mean, it's not like you can just walk through and it will magically scan your card from afar; I don't think they claim to do that. But, you can just place the card near the sensor instead of physically running it through the machine. My badge at work does that, after all. In Tokyo they have had such a system for 3 or 4 years. It's awesome, and very very quick.

[silvarwyrm.livejournal.com]

Oh, also. In general I totally support the T's move to join the 21st century. The system was outdated, and cards and new automated fare machines are a MUCH better way to go. I'm glad they switched.

[ppaladin.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of paper card, vs tokens. There are kinks and room for improvement in the system, but I love being able to keep my T card in my wallet, even though I am not a monthly T subscriber. I no longer have to remember to take my spare tokens with me. Also, there are tons of card recharging machines now -- whereas previously, there were no (working) automated machines are Alewife, and just one long manual line... causing me to buy t tokens in bulk, which I would later forget at home.

I agree with ethicsgradient's complaints, but the move made my T experience a lot better overall.

The transition was a huge mess.

[thomascantor.livejournal.com]

The transition has been rough on busriders, what with the greatly increased for almost everyone. The tickets are slow, but as much delay is caused by people trying to fit dollar bills the old way (folding them up jamming them into a slot when you weren't supposed to anyway) or dumping coins in a differently-angled slot. But the microchip-embedded cards may change things somewhat. Boston.com had a quick video of someone merely tapping their wallet on a fare box and entering a gate. Getting on the bus will hopefully just involve getting a light to turn on and walking right on board.

The automatic fare vending machines in subway stations are a great improvement over the old, often-out-of-service token machines; they're new, they take debit or credit, and provide more options for how much money to add to the tickets or cards. When the fares rise again, of course, it'll be annoying if you want to put in just enough for, say four subway trips; otherwise you'll have to remember how much is left (though the cards are supposed to trigger a displey showing how much is left).