Green Line LRT | ?m | ?s | Calgary Transit

[InfrastructureEnthusiast]

But why? Reloading fares through a phone app can be done anywhere so don't need a convenience store network or kiosks. The gamut of stores that would accept credit cards has got to be orders of magnitude larger than those that would accept reloadable cards. Credit cards and mobile phones are ubiquitous, so it would be foolish to use any other technology.

A lifetime in the IT biz has left me horribly cynical...

As I stated before, CCs are a juicy fraud target, and adding a dozen or more readers per station is a skimmers dream.. Yeah it can be mitigated somewhat by using a low value card for tapping, and yes banks are generally very good at dealing with compromised cards and refunding illegitimate charges, but its still a much more attractive target than a SVC with more limited uses.

Phone apps, especially those developed for gov contracts by the lowest bidder, have a tendency to be hot garbage, and beyond potential data leakage from the app itself, tapping with a phone is also open to QRcode/NFC hacks and the like, which are much harder to detect than CC fraud, and present an even more attractive target with all the sensors and personal data smartphones contain.

Add traveler considerations to the mix, where CCs are less likely to work smoothly in foreign countries, and visitors may be more reluctant to use an app from a foreign nation, SVCs continue to present a simple low risk solution.

Having SVCs able to auto-reload for regular domestic users would seems to address the convenience factor, while keeping risk of system abuse as low as possible.

 

[Woosh]

A lifetime in the IT biz has left me horribly cynical...

As I stated before, CCs are a juicy fraud target, and adding a dozen or more readers per station is a skimmers dream.. Yeah it can be mitigated somewhat by using a low value card for tapping, and yes banks are generally very good at dealing with compromised cards and refunding illegitimate charges, but its still a much more attractive target than a SVC with more limited uses.

This isn't happening at any scale that is significant. It's not a useful reason to choose an inferior system

Toronto and Vancouver both have pay by credit cards and there isn't massive fraud occurring. And that's in a system where abuse would be more rewarded because of larger throughput.

It clearly isn't a viable vector of attack.

 

[Woosh]

Calgary Transit picked, the cheapest, best and most future proof method for managing payments. It may not have the branding allure of cleverly named stored values cards, but it works.

"Best"?

How so? How is downloading an app an easier user experience than simply tapping your credit card?

Have you considered the experience of tourists visiting Calgary? I assure you, the last thing they want to worry about after getting off a long flight is downloading an app to make use of public transit.


"Future Proof"?

Have you even used the Calgary Transit app? It's far from a modern experience.



TTC and GO in Ontario have made use of the Presto payment infrastructure since 2007. They continuously invest in it and it works great.


There are so many folks in Calgary who like to pontificate over the best way to manage public transit who clearly never ride public transit.

 

[trtcttc]

I think people miss that Japan especially is/was a cash society, and didn't have the waves that Canada has had, replacing most cash uses. In absence of an Interac, there was room for a product to play 90% of Interac's role on the consumer side. I know Japan made a pro-tourism push in 2019-2020 to support more use of credit cards in the runup to the Tokyo Olympics, so whether that is still the case, I do not know.

The only draw back to credit cards is fees. They already have unmatchable ubiquity and fraud detection. Competition from upstart payment providers and new technologies such as block chain will push those fess down.

Interac seems to be a relic from the early 90s. Once ecommerce took off in the late 90s, almost every vendor started accepting credit cards as customers demanded it.

These cards were definitely an alternative to cash, East Asian societies also have a negative reaction to credit. If you pay for small amounts with credit it's like telling people you are poor. Obviously attitudes are changing but that was the case in the past. Interac serves a similar function. Since credit has replaced Interac, it's unlikely a stored value card is the future of transit/payment in Calgar

So easy that the existing ctrain ticket machines have tap haha
All I know wrt credit card is that the bus readers have the hardware to support open loop payment

They probably are just not turning it on or want to invest in the additional server/IT costs. When it eventually happens, it'll be credit card open payment. It's much easier to manage for the service provider than stored value. With the current Calgary Transit looking to slash electricity costs associated with an extra car, I don't think we're seeing fare enhancements (except going up in price) anytime soon.

 

[kora]

How is downloading an app an easier user experience than simply tapping your credit card?

I don't think it's easier or better, but an app allows you to track your spending better, especially if you're just buying tickets or day passes. Best to have both options available for people

 

[whatchyyc]

The city hired a consultant in the fall to put together a fare strategy and implementation plan. Should be completed by the end of this year, so we'll see what they come up with

 

[CalgaryTiger]

I see they've renamed Fourth Street Station to Grand Central Station/Event Centre... Oh man I hope they don't keep calling it the Event Centre, so stupid. I assume this whole provincial rail thing has a better than 50% chance of being a thing.

I also know the city has done some shifting around of the people working on this within infrastructure. Needless to say, the train has left the station. I'm excited!

 

[Transit Apologist]

We don't need to reinvent the wheel here. Vancouver and Toronto, and countless other cities globally have it figured out.

Their systems accept dedicated reloadable cards, Credit/Debit Cards and Apple/Android Pay. It's undeniably the most user friendly experience.

There's no ambiguity as to what works best. Calgary just loves to pick the cheapest and worst way of managing transit.

The system CT has implemented has reliable readers that are adaptable to pretty much every payment option we'd ever need. I think starting with an ultimately well-working app and saving fare cards & credit for future incremental improvements is perfectly reasonable. Would users on this forum be any happier if CT had rushed to set up a fare system with all the bells & whistles, only to end up with a glitchfest that takes years (and millions of dollars) to fix? Some people may remember that we almost did. After the Connect card debacle (and Presto's comedy of errors in 2019) CT has every reason to go with the safest option, while still leaving room for future expansion.

 

[CBBarnett]

I see they've renamed Fourth Street Station to Grand Central Station/Event Centre... Oh man I hope they don't keep calling it the Event Centre, so stupid. I assume this whole provincial rail thing has a better than 50% chance of being a thing.

I'd love Calgary Transit to do three things about naming and branding. Perhaps use the Green Line as the pilot for overall reform:

1. Move away from the long conjoined station names - "Grand Central Station / Event Centre" should be "Central" or "East Village" or "Exhibition" - whatever, just shorter! Don't repeat the mistakes of the past with the Green Line.
2. Develop a unique brand for Calgary Transit that is separate from the City of Calgary - so much inflexibility in advertising, signage and customer-centric communications is given up by being subservient to a generic corporate brand, rather than a transit-champion exclusive brand.
3. Update and modernize all wayfinding, mapping and signage. It's outrageous that there's no full system map at LRT stations, and the "current" online system map is from 2023.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

I'd love Calgary Transit to do three things about naming and branding. Perhaps use the Green Line as the pilot for overall reform:

1. Move away from the long conjoined station names - "Grand Central Station / Event Centre" should be "Central" or "East Village" or "Exhibition" - whatever, just shorter! Don't repeat the mistakes of the past with the Green Line.
2. Develop a unique brand for Calgary Transit that is separate from the City of Calgary - so much inflexibility in advertising, signage and customer-centric communications is given up by being subservient to a generic corporate brand, rather than a transit-champion exclusive brand.
3. Update and modernize all wayfinding, mapping and signage. It's outrageous that there's no full system map at LRT stations, and the "current" online system map is from 2023.

Maybe this will happen with that councillors push to try and do the easy things.

 

[trtcttc]

I'd love Calgary Transit to do three things about naming and branding. Perhaps use the Green Line as the pilot for overall reform:

1. Move away from the long conjoined station names - "Grand Central Station / Event Centre" should be "Central" or "East Village" or "Exhibition" - whatever, just shorter! Don't repeat the mistakes of the past with the Green Line.
2. Develop a unique brand for Calgary Transit that is separate from the City of Calgary - so much inflexibility in advertising, signage and customer-centric communications is given up by being subservient to a generic corporate brand, rather than a transit-champion exclusive brand.
3. Update and modernize all wayfinding, mapping and signage. It's outrageous that there's no full system map at LRT stations, and the "current" online system map is from 2023.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think some of the downtown stations can have destination names, like Calgary Courts Centre station, Core Shopping Centre Station. It's odd they decide to rename a station with a name already (City Hall) to add another name to it (Bow Valley).

For maps, we should have an LRT + MAX/BRT map at every station and that to be the base rapid transit map.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think some of the downtown stations can have destination names, like Calgary Courts Centre station, Core Shopping Centre Station. It's odd they decide to rename a station with a name already (City Hall) to add another name to it (Bow Valley).

For maps, we should have an LRT + MAX/BRT map at every station and that to be the base rapid transit map.

London Map style.

 

[whatchyyc]

All LRT stations already have the rapid transit map (MAX+LRT)

 

[Surrealplaces]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think some of the downtown stations can have destination names, like Calgary Courts Centre station, Core Shopping Centre Station. It's odd they decide to rename a station with a name already (City Hall) to add another name to it (Bow Valley).

For maps, we should have an LRT + MAX/BRT map at every station and that to be the base rapid transit map.

The one beside Bow Valley College can be renamed 'Crime Central'

 

[magnetite]

Speaking of long station names, I think one of the reasons why they didn't name Tuscany station "Rocky Ridge/Tuscany" is that the name was too long to fit on the train destination signage on the front of the LRV.