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In many countries I've been to, the contactless are available even in supermarkets and corner shops.
I think it's safe to assume that once they've got everything in place on the system itself, they will roll out Key sales to sales agents.
I also think that the slow rollout here was done to avoid the monumental clusterf**k that was the introduction of the Ventra card on the Chicago Transit Authority system. Both use the same technology but the equipment came from different vendors. (Now, the coding and equipment production in Philly were the monumental clusterf**k. The contractor did so badly on the coding and the user interface that it will most likely never win another transit system fare technology contract again.)
Ultimately, this system is supposed to be able to work with any payment card that has RFID built in. When that will happen is anyone's guess. But when it does, I suspect there will be enough RFID cards out there to make widespread card sales redundant.
One technological oversight they should work on because of this is paying with your cell phone.
I experienced this in Asian countries. Credit cards are already contactless and those who don't want to use their credit cards have an option of contactless cards they can be loaded up with credit. The cards can be used ubiquitously like credit cards in stores and in the public transit system, including taxis.
I think this requires the backing of the banking system. In our case this would be the Visa and Mastercard systems. The US lagged in adopting cell phones but we're the leaders in mobile phones. I suspect we may see the same when it comes to payments and we become the leader in friction-less payment systems.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl
Ultimately, this system is supposed to be able to work with any payment card that has RFID built in. When that will happen is anyone's guess. But when it does, I suspect there will be enough RFID cards out there to make widespread card sales redundant.
SEPTA TOKENS CAN STILL BE USED on the buses, trolleys, and subways. Subways you have to go to the key card kiosk to put in the token slot for a quicktrip ticket for the subway. Trolley + Bus you just drop it in the fare box as you do change.
KeyCards have to be purchased at the Kiosk, which can be reloaded online when you create a account...tell your son to register it so he can get a new one if he loses it.
SEPTA has said NO to Key Kiosks at the railroad stations....i think its stupid but there might be some reasoning behind it....with today's technology going the way it is. It might be best for him to get a key card with a weekly or monthly pass for him to get back and fourth to work this summe if he takes a bus or subway after he gets in the city....and just buy train tickets on weekdays....but he can use the key card on the regional rail on the weekends because it still carries the rule of no restriction on weekends.
But Key is coming to railroad slowly in stages.
Quote:
SEPTA Key launches for Regional Rail ‘Early Adopters’ Aug. 1
POSTED: 07/01/18, 9:47 AM EDT | UPDATED: 2 WEEKS, 1 DAY AGO 0 COMMENTS
SEPTA will welcome its first Regional Rail customers to the future of fare payment with the launch of the SEPTA Key Regional Rail “Early Adopters” Program in August. This phase allows SEPTA to begin sharing the benefits of the Key with Regional Rail riders while work continues on system-wide implementation.
The Early Adopters Program will begin with Monthly TrailPass customers who travel to-and-from one of 19 selected Zone 4 stations. The August Monthly TrailPasses go on sale starting July 20, and the new Key Cards will be good for travel beginning Aug. 1.
“This is a major step forward in the SEPTA Key fare modernization project,” said SEPTA General Manager Jeffrey D. Knueppel. “We are excited to begin sharing the SEPTA Key with Regional Rail riders through the Early Adopters program.”
SEPTA will be bringing the Mobile Fare Kiosk truck out to the Early Adopter Stations for events where customers will be able to purchase a Key Card, buy a Zone 4 TrailPass, and register their new Card to protect it in the event of loss or theft. Key Cards will also be available for purchase at SEPTA Regional Rail Sales Offices at Center City Stations. Regional Rail TrailPass transactions will not be available at Fare Kiosks during the initial rollout, but customers will be able to reload Monthly TrailPasses online at www.septakey.org or by calling the SEPTA Key Customer Service Center at 855-567-3782.
When the Key Card program for Regional Rail expands, customers will be able to purchase Weekly TrailPasses, add funds to the Travel Wallet, and TrailPass purchases will be expanded to Zone 1, 2, and 3 riders. Until then all existing fare instruments, including magnetic stripe passes and paper tickets, will remain available for purchase until further notice.
As part of the preparations for the Early Adopters launch the new Key turnstiles and ADA gates are being activated at all Center City Rail stations. The turnstiles at Jefferson Station are currently in operation and will be followed by University City on July 2, Temple University on July 9, Suburban on July 16, and 30th Street by the end of July. The turnstiles will accommodate tap-and-go travel with the SEPTA Key Card, and customers with legacy TrailPasses can swipe through the turnstiles. Customer attendants will also collect paper tickets at the gates between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday-Friday. Conductors will use handheld devices to validate Monthly TrailPasses loaded on SEPTA Key Cards.
Customers who use the stations listed below on the Lansdale/Doylestown, Paoli/Thorndale, Trenton and West Trenton Lines are eligible to participate in the Early Adopters program:
Pennbrook, North Wales, Delaware Valley University and Link Belt
• Paoli/Thorndale: Thorndale, Downingtown, Whitford and Malvern
• Trenton Line: Bristol
• West Trenton: Yardley, Woodbourne and Langhorne.
Starting Aug. 1, customers can use a SEPTA Key Card loaded with a Monthly TrailPass to tap the platform validator at their home station. Once they arrive at a Center City station, they will tap at the turnstile to exit. For the return trip, they will tap to go through the turnstile and tap again at their home station platform validator, after exiting the train, to close out the trip. For information, visit SEPTA | Introducing the Future of Fare Payment at SEPTA
I'm yet to use SEPTA and will unlikely ever use it. It's my son who needs to use the bus to go for his Summer gig. I had bought tokens earlier in the year for him to use in the Summer and they will soon run out. We can pick him from work in the evenings however he has to take the bus to work in the mid-morning while we are both at work.
So you can imagine our dismay when he calls us at work if the bus fails to show up at his busstop so that we can take him to work. Luckily, we both work 15 minutes away and one of us can drop him to work. I'm trying to convince him to ride his bike to work should the bus not show up as there is a trail that he can use and not cycle on the roads.
I assume his summer job is located in one of the suburban counties?
Perhaps on a bus route whose number is in the 90s?
I have a friend who used to work at SEPTA before he got put on greased skids out of the agency. He used to complain fairly regularly about dispatchers and schedulers who wouldn't pull a driver and bus to cover a missed run on a line that serves several workplaces in upper Montgomery County and runs once an hour.
I'm sure you know I'm a public transit advocate and SEPTA defender, but that doesn't mean that it does everything right. Sometimes, it means it hardly does anything right. There are several gag versions of what the acronym stands for; my contribution to the list:
The Society for the Elimination of Public Transportation Altogether
I don't know but that, based on some of your past pronouncements, you wouldn't sign up for membership in that organization. I was surprised you let your son use it.
SEPTA TOKENS CAN STILL BE USED on the buses, trolleys, and subways. Subways you have to go to the key card kiosk to put in the token slot for a quicktrip ticket for the subway. Trolley + Bus you just drop it in the fare box as you do change.
KeyCards have to be purchased at the Kiosk, which can be reloaded online when you create a account...tell your son to register it so he can get a new one if he loses it.
SEPTA has said NO to Key Kiosks at the railroad stations....i think its stupid but there might be some reasoning behind it....with today's technology going the way it is. It might be best for him to get a key card with a weekly or monthly pass for him to get back and fourth to work this summe if he takes a bus or subway after he gets in the city....and just buy train tickets on weekdays....but he can use the key card on the regional rail on the weekends because it still carries the rule of no restriction on weekends.
But Key is coming to railroad slowly in stages.
What happens with seniors with senior key cards who pay $1 oneway fares on regional rail ?
Well., I'll say this. SEPTA is a lot better than the services in some of the places I've been working over the past six months, but the Key Card is based on the transpass to a certain extent. C'mon now, you can only load it on certain days of the week? I think Friday to Tuesday? I mean even the system in little Chattanooga, TN allows you to load your card right there on the bus after it expires... Same thing with Atlanta, and I know in LA, San Francisco, and a few other metros where I've taken public transportation you loaded your card after 7 or 30 days. Nobody's doing that based on their old transpass/buspass systems from yesteryear. Except SEPTA.
Well., I'll say this. SEPTA is a lot better than the services in some of the places I've been working over the past six months, but the Key Card is based on the transpass to a certain extent. C'mon now, you can only load it on certain days of the week? I think Friday to Tuesday? I mean even the system in little Chattanooga, TN allows you to load your card right there on the bus after it expires... Same thing with Atlanta, and I know in LA, San Francisco, and a few other metros where I've taken public transportation you loaded your card after 7 or 30 days. Nobody's doing that based on their old transpass/buspass systems from yesteryear. Except SEPTA.
Since SEPTA has already turned the calendar-based "weekly" and "monthly" TransPasses into bulk discounts (56- and 240-trip, respectively - in essence, 7- and 30-day versions of the 8-trip One Day Convenience Pass), it really needs to get rid of the rigid calendrical schedule.
They should be good for 7 or 30 days from date of first use, or since they're counting trips, they should be good until the last trip is used, with alerts for riders when the trip balance is running low. (That would require a total rewrite of the turnstile and farebox reader software, though, and I suspect SEPTA is chary of doing that given what happened the first time around.) Or to put it back in SEPTA's favor, until the last trip is used or 7 or 30 days from first use, whichever comes first. They should then be renewable around the point where they will expire, regardless how soon or late that is.
Since SEPTA has already turned the calendar-based "weekly" and "monthly" TransPasses into bulk discounts (56- and 240-trip, respectively - in essence, 7- and 30-day versions of the 8-trip One Day Convenience Pass), it really needs to get rid of the rigid calendrical schedule.
They should be good for 7 or 30 days from date of first use, or since they're counting trips, they should be good until the last trip is used, with alerts for riders when the trip balance is running low. (That would require a total rewrite of the turnstile and farebox reader software, though, and I suspect SEPTA is chary of doing that given what happened the first time around.) Or to put it back in SEPTA's favor, until the last trip is used or 7 or 30 days from first use, whichever comes first. They should then be renewable around the point where they will expire, regardless how soon or late that is.
SEPTA definitely won't let it live as a real discount because they would lose a lot of money. For example, my Zone 2 TP is slightly cheaper than buying RR tix five days a week for a month. Add in the benefit of using buses, subway, trolleys and weekend trips and I'll always buy a Zone 2 TP vs. a balance with a Key card.
Take away the "monthly" variable and my Zone 2 TP would last me for months.
SEPTA definitely won't let it live as a real discount because they would lose a lot of money. For example, my Zone 2 TP is slightly cheaper than buying RR tix five days a week for a month. Add in the benefit of using buses, subway, trolleys and weekend trips and I'll always buy a Zone 2 TP vs. a balance with a Key card.
Take away the "monthly" variable and my Zone 2 TP would last me for months.
There's very little reason for them not to just have a 7 or 30 day pass, which is what I was accustomed to before I moved here. Making people stick to the calendar is arbitrary. So what if it's July 1?
For instance, this month we took a bunch of time off. I get my pass through work anyway, so nothing changes for me. But my wife isn't going to buy a monthly pass when she took a whole week off. Therefore we end up cheating SEPTA by sharing my pass for some days - even though we'd be entirely happy just to buy a 30 day pass starting on the day we came back to Philly. Their silly structure basically forces us into the only logical conclusion, buying a couple of weekly passes and "sharing" a pass the other days that don't line up with the week-month continuum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1ondoner
So you can imagine our dismay when he calls us at work if the bus fails to show up at his busstop so that we can take him to work. Luckily, we both work 15 minutes away and one of us can drop him to work. I'm trying to convince him to ride his bike to work should the bus not show up as there is a trail that he can use and not cycle on the roads.
Buses just not showing up is a pretty common phenomenon. It's always annoying, but on a suburban bus that barely runs, that must be a nightmare. Especially for the people who don't have parents to pick them up.
When it happens on a very heavily used route, like the 23, it can cause a logjam that affects the next 3+ buses.
What I want to know is if Sandy can explain why it's so common, and if it's as common in other large transit systems.
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