Quote:
Originally Posted by odurandina
Do you need a ticket after boarding a commuter train?
MBTA you can just purchase a ticket with the app, and activate it the moment the conductor comes by.
the e-ticket becomes void a short time later.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lizzie Descloux
They're grouped into Fare Zones. I used Zone 3 for regional rail. Tickets are nearly phased out as of now, everything is done through a "key card" you can reload through the septa website. Tickets are available but you'll have to pay the fare on the ride and the employee will hand you a ticket with your zone on it. I don't regularly use Septa now since I have a car, but that was policy back in 2018 when I took it to Suburban Station. I don't think much has changed since then but I could be wrong.,, ;g
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Not wading through all the electrons that have been spilled on this thread right now, but the way the new SEPTA Key system works is:
You get a debit card (it bears the MasterCard logo) that you can use to pay fares and also load with cash for purchases via MasterCard.*
You can then load passes** onto it or add cash to something called a Travel Wallet.
If you buy a weekly or monthly pass, you get a bucket of trips (56 for a weekly, 240 for a monthly**) that you have to use within the calendar time period specified (month of May, week of April 27 [Monday-Sunday]), and whenever you tap your card against the reader on a bus farebox or subway station turnstile, one trip is deducted from the bucket. If you use Regional Rail, which has zoned fares, you tap twice: once at a reader on the platform when you board the train and again at the platform reader where you get off the train. (In the five Center City Zone stations — northeast to southwest: Temple University, Jefferson Station, Suburban Station, 30th Street Station, Penn Medicine [up until last month University City] Station — you tap your card against the turnstile readers, which operate in both directions.) You're then charged a trip from the appropriate zone.
If you don't buy a pass, money is deducted from the Travel Wallet to cover the fare for your trip segment. Regional Rail fares are by zone; transit fares are $2 ($2.50 cash) for the first trip segment and $1 ($2.50 cash) for each transfer between surface transit lines or between surface and rapid transit.
If you don't have a Key card, you can pay for a Quick Trip ticket, good only on rapid transit, with a credit or debit card at the fare kiosks in the transit stations. On Regional Rail, riders without Key cards must still purchase paper tickets. You can do this at the ticket windows in the Center City stations or at the ticket offices at outlying stations, most of which are open only during the morning commute period. When no ticket office is open, you must buy your ticket on board the train; there's a surcharge for that.
*The technology Philadelphia uses is similar to what the Chicago Transit Authority adopted for its Ventra card system. Ventra cards were originally branded with the MasterCard logo as well, but the agency dropped out of the credit-card system when riders complained that their cards were expiring after three years. SEPTA will probably stick with it because it had as a goal a payment system that would work with any payment card; that is, you could load a pass or Travel Wallet onto your own bank debit or credit card. That hasn't been implemented yet.
**One of my criticisms of how SEPTA implemented the Key is that they blew an opportunity to bring their pass structure up to date. Right now, they're a hybrid bulk-purchase and timed-use product that offers the worst of both: you have to use up your trips within a calendar-based time frame and you don't get all-you-care-to-ride privileges within that time frame. (This was the result with their obsession that they might be leaving money on the table somewhere; they put in the ride caps to end the common practice of pass-sharing among riders, as in an office where the workers might use SEPTA to run errands during the day.)
I'd suggest either making the passes unlimited for 7 or 30 days from first use (and thus untying them from the calendar) or make them discounted bulk purchases good until you've run out of trips to use.
More on the main topic later.
--MarketStEl, who reports on transit from time to time (used to be a regular beat) for
Philadelphia magazine and writes a transportation column for
Next City
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