Here’s a repost of the my Business in Vancouver column from last August relevant to TransLink’s current dilemma on the tap-off requirement for the Compass Card:
.
TransLink’s Compass Card needs course correction before rollout
I am a creature of habit. You are too. It’s the brain’s way of being efficient. By not having to concentrate on something done by rote, the brain uses less energy. We go into a kind of Zen state.
At least that’s what seems to happen when I’m on a bus or trolley. Once I’ve boarded, shown my pass or registered my FareSaver card and found my seat or a stable place to stand, that’s all I have to focus on. I’m in a state of timelessness until my destination.
I was part of a beta test for TransLink’s Compass Card – the stored-value, all-purpose card being slowly introduced by TransLink. It was then that I discovered how changing a habit can be quite traumatic.
Compass requires that passengers tap the card on a mounted pad when getting on – and again at the rear door when getting off. That’s not a problem when using a card to get through a turnstile for a subway (you’re already alert), but it’s quite another thing when required to exit a bus or tram.
Chances are, your brain has geared down; you are unprepared. All of a sudden, on hearing your stop, you have to find your card, locate the pad, make sure the swipe has registered, get through the door and not cause a backup. When a crowd is piling up behind, with the doors closing and the bus about to pull away, yes, it can be traumatic.
In that situation I found my brain went into panic mode. I jumped off the bus, swipeless, only to realize I would be charged extra as a penalty when the system was up and running – an automatic three-zone fare deducted from my card. And this happened repeatedly.
I realized that being prepared to tap out would take time and practice. In other words, it had to be a habit.
Unfortunately, when Compass is rolled out onto the bus and trolley system, the trauma part of the process is going to happen to tens of thousands of people all at the same time.
And it won’t be because the system is too slow; TransLink has insisted on a high level of performance from the vendor. This is not a technological problem; it is a human one.
How many new users will jump off the bus like me, especially under crowded conditions and be frustrated, annoyed or angry? Maybe some might push back; others will yell at the bus driver.
Even if it’s a fraction of 1% of riders, the number will be in the thousands. There will be hundreds, every day, of pissed-off passengers.
Take the 1.8% tap-out failure rate in places where they have done this, such as Perth, and apply that to the bus riders in Vancouver at about 700,000 per day. They will be told to call a help centre, and many will. If it is overloaded or unhelpful, it will only reinforce the hate-on that is the typical response to TransLink failure.
The backlash will be vocal, and it will get political, especially leading into the transit referendum likely happening this spring.
After the mechanical and accidental failures of the last month, TransLink needs a win, and Compass could deliver it for them – eventually. Transit riders want something easy to use, easily rechargeable, easily replaced when lost. In time, it may even allow for replacement of the zone system with a distance charge, so customers pay only for how far they travel. That’s one reason for embedding the tap-off system now, as well as for providing an immense amount of data for the more efficient management of the entire system.
But at the time of launch, there will be no purpose for the swipe-off system on buses, only for turnstiles. It’s not surprising, in fact, that no sizable bus system in North America has a swipe-off requirement.
Since a lot of data can be provided simply be having a swipe-on system, transit providers decided the additional cost and risk was not worth it.
And risk is what TransLink will be taking with the Compass rollout if it occurs before the spring referendum. There will be no shortage of frustrated transit users willing to speak into cameras to express their unhappiness. Perceived failure might be sufficient to doom the referendum if even the most ardent transit users vote against it.
The board of TransLink needs to take this into account, and not just focus on a technologically smooth execution. After the two system failures in one week in July, the media will be primed for anything that smells of incompetence – no matter how minor or how small a percentage of people affected.
But the decision to forgo a tap-off requirement on buses and trolleys must be made now, before the system is given a green light. If that light turns red after execution, there’s probably no way to reverse direction.
•
Lets face it Gord, the Compass card rollout has been a disaster. This on the news lastnight:
http://bc.ctvnews.ca/translink-mulls-1-zone-fare-system-for-bus-riders-after-compass-glitch-1.2079278
When Darren was here, he mentioned how going with CUBIC was a huge mistake. Now translink says you only tag on and not off? What the is the point of the system then? What a joke.
We should all thank good old Kevin for forcing these lovely FalconGates, err, faregates upon the region against Translink’s will and multiple studies showing they’d cost more than they’d ever collect.
What those faregates have to do do with the Compass choice on buses?
Fact is that that was a Translink choice, approved by the board and council of Mayors: Province has nothing to do with it.
Translink issued a RFP along Translink requirement.
several proponent have put bid forward…
Cubic over promised and is under delivering
Now, Translink seems to want to change the requirements…
If I was one of the unlucky bidder (such as the goodHK Octopuss system which has been in service for more than a quarter century)…a $200 Million lawsuit against Translink could be in order!
So yes, this Faregate/Compass is a full fiasco.
Regarding what should have been adopted should have been clear since day one:
http://voony.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/the-short-coming-of-a-distance-based-transit-fare-system/
Perhaps this is in the plan, but for the whole “charged three zones if you don’t tap off” issue, I’m not sure why it isn’t being configured to charge the maximum amount *that route* traverses.
For example on a 5 downtown, the maximum you could ever be charged is one zone, simply because it never crosses a zone boundary, there’s no way it could incur a three zone charge. The number of routes that actually do cross zone boundaries isn’t very large these days because of skytrain, and I’d wager most people on those routes actually are crossing the zone boundaries. I’m sitting here pondering and am struggling to think of a route that actually does traverse all three boundaries (when zones are in effect, the N9 obviously does, but there’s no zones at midnight). Which I guess would be another obvious caveat, the three-zone failure to tap out surcharge would obviously be inappropriate in evenings or weekends, it’s never been mentioned if that was programmed in to the system as well.
The only reason I can see a surcharge of any kind for failure to tap out is to encourage people to tap out in order to collect the extremely valuable ridership data. However you don’t need to jump to the three-zone extreme for that, going back to our one-zone example of the 5, a 50 cents penalty for failure to tap out would be sufficient to get that habit in place. Perhaps even a grace of 2-3 failures to tap out per month for those times you honestly forget or the reader has an error. It’s literally not rocket science…
I have just returned from Sydney where the transit Opal Card is being rolled out. There are lineups at the exit doors of transit where people are trying to swipe off.The fine is for ten trips debited from your card should you not swipe.
http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/content/opal-card
The challenge is that the other system using day bus and ferry cards is still in place. I was stopped and challenged for not swiping off several times by Opal card vigilantes who were disappointed that I had the day tickets and not the Opal card in my possession.
Gord, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. Dual tag in of itself is a decent idea if it enables a more equitable, distance based fare charge. And people are frequently encouraged to alter habits….hasn’t your discourse on Bike to Work Week been to encourage changes of habit and criticize those who hide behind habit as an excuse not to ride? That said, I agree that this isn’t the time for dual-tag, given Cubic’s hopelessness, the large technological challenges and the very obvious dwell time impacts this is going to have.
Building on ‘lairdm’s comment, I would certainly encourage TransLink to look to WMATA in Washington DC as an example in the interim. Distance-based, dual-tag on the gated rail network with a flat fare, single tag on bus. If I’m not mistaken, there’s less than a dozen routes that cross a zone boundary, so a default single zone fare on bus will collect most revenue. For those handful of routes that do cross a zone, customers will self-identify as a 2-Zone customer and the driver will press a button to override the default fare….almost exactly the same behavior that is required from customers and drivers currently if paying for a zone upgrade with cash or Faresaver on bus. Off-peak, there’s no issue as the whole network is flat fare. Invariably there would be some interesting challenges that would crop up (interline routes, maybe?) but the challenges would have to be smaller than the current ones facing the agency.
That would leave WCE as the only service requiring even a slight change in habit. Dual-tag would be ideal, and will require some behavior change.
As a former insider, I can provide some background on how Compass has developed. First, contrary to the easy-to-spout-off media cliches, the program is not by any means a ‘disaster’. It is a highly complex undertaking and, if anything, TransLink has done a much better job of controlling its costs. Sydney Australia was something like $450 million over budget…systems in the states (EG: Los Angeles) have taken ten years or longer to close fare gates after installing them.
There are not many companies to choose from when purchasing a fare card system and, if you’ll forgive a politically-incorrect analogy, Cubic was ‘the tallest pygmy’ in the market.
As the Vancouver Sun article noted this morning, electronic farecards have major difficulties with a multi-zone fare system. Fortunately, most transit systems that have switched to ‘smart-cards’ do not cover multiple zones and have simple, flat fares. Considering our multi-modal system, our quite generous transfer privileges and the existence of no fewer than 150 different fare products, the Cubic system needs to handle over 56,000 different transaction scenarios.
So, what do the solutions look like? The following are my observations…NOT TransLink’s. We can certainly simplify things if we can eliminate the tap-out requirement. As noted in other comments, working to our advantage is the fact that most bus routes operate only in a single zone, so the only tricky part is dealing with a handful of multi-zone routes. SkyTrain, by virtue of the faregates, won’t be a problem.
The problem with the bus card readers has a lot to do with wireless technology needed for real-time transactions and the nulls that the transit system experiences in what is likely North America’s largest and most geographically complex service area. It might be possible to start off without real-time services…capture the taps on an on-board hard drive and download the data at the end of the service day. The system wouldn’t be as ‘smart’ as intended, but at least we could get something up and running.
Ken, you need to look at HOP card in Auckland. They have multiple zones (Stages) and multiple modes (Bus, Ferry, Train). They tag on and off no problem over multiple zones
https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/fares-discounts/fare-stages-zones/how-fares-are-calculated
https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/fares-discounts/how-to-pay-for-public-transport
Thanks Scot…will do.
The Translink SmartCard system could be described “as very complex” by North American Standard but Smart card system are staples in Europe or in Asia…where probably more than 1000 of them exists…some cover an entire country like in Netherlands, most cover complete region, with many different operator fare, transportation mode….the vast majority of them get unroll without trouble.
The Seattle’s Orca system covers an area more complex that the Translink one with different transit authorities, zone,…includes 2000 buses, ferries, LRT…
Orca has costed $40 millions…
Even if you remove the faregate component, we are north of $100 millions for the Compass program suggesting we have already overpaid the system by a very significant margin.
Hong Kong could not have zone system per sei but doesn’t have flat fare either, and still no tap out on buses
Their system, developed 25 years ago was also facing wireless transmission issue: they roughly used the strategy you mention (“caching”: you don’t need to wait the end of the day to sync with the server, but just to get a reliable network, so sync delay is a matter of seconds not hours: something usually unotceable to the user):
My understanding is that it is still done that way on most of the systems because
1/lack of network reliability can be still an issue
2/Transaction time is utterly critical in Transit world (and the whole rational to switch to a smartcard is to reduce them)
3/ Falsely accepted transaction (due to lack of funding and sync) could be neglictable and involve individually insignificant amount of money…
It is mindblogging that the Cubic solution doesn’t cache data.
Have to agree with Voony. It’s mind-boggling that Cubic requires continuous real-time communications (if it does). I’ve never heard of a mobile or distributed network that doesn’t have local caching to take care of the times when the network is unavailable, and just transmits the data when it’s available.
If that’s really how Cubic works on the buses, then paying even $1 for it is a ripoff – it’s either a con or design incompetence.
From what has been made public, it sounds like TransLink asked Cubic to make the cards do more than on other systems by adding the “tap-out” function. Supposedly Cubic tried to dissuade TransLink from that idea.
If Cubic then went ahead anyway to get the contract and the system doesn’t work, then it’s their fault and they shouldn’t be paid. If TransLink added the “tap-out” feature after a contract was signed, then it’s TransLink’s fault.
TransLink wants the “tap-in and tap-out features to get transportation usage data and to eventually change the fare zone system to a distance-based fare system.
The problem is we have a mixed system. The SkyTrain is a regional system while most bus routes are local, although enough of them cross zones or travel longer distances. The SkyTrain routes are direct but a fair number of bus routes (especially outside of Vancouver) are not as Voony points out in a link. Why should a transit customer pay a distance-based fare on a route that isn’t direct?
There is plenty of blame to go around but Transportation Minister Stone is being disingenuous to put the all the blame on TransLink.
It was Kevin Falcon, the earlier B.C. Liberal Transportation Minister, who wanted fare gates installed in SkyTrain stations. I believe most of that was simply to mollify motorists (the majority of voters) who had this impression of hordes of SkyTrain passengers riding for free while poor motorists had to pay gasoline surcharges and property tax supplements to subsidize these scofflaws.
Then TransLink having been forced to install gates, probably decided to make the best of it by bringing in the electronic card and going for a system that would also collect passenger travel data. And this after they just spent money in the 1990s to replace the earlier fare boxes on the buses! Barely 15 years later, here we are changing them again.
The SkyTrain fare gates may slow some of the non-paying passengers but it won’t stop them. They’ll simply jump over the low gate. And on the buses? No bus driver in his right mind will challenge a passenger to pay the fare if they refuse. I don’t blame them. As a driver, my physical well-being is worth more than fighting over a transit fare. As it is now, many drivers simply let non-fare paying riders board. In fact many drivers who are running late at busy transit exchanges, simply want all passengers to board quickly and do so without having their fares checked.
And fare inspectors? They rarely check fares on the SkyTrain now during rush hours because there are simply too many people and the system will bog down. Try doing a fare inspection on a crowded bus. Good luck.
The fare gates will also slow everything down. Look at the hordes of passengers in rush hour as they stream out of SkyTrain stations. The fare gate will have to open and close for each of them. There is wear and tear. What happens when one or two break down? Imagine the lines leaving Brighouse Station for example with its limited space for arriving and departing passengers at the fare gate level.
Even the current system on the buses is slightly slower than the old fare boxes. Imagine trying to “tap-out” on a crowded bus when passengers congregate in front of the rear (actually the middle) doors of poorly-designed North American buses.
To buy a fare payment system for $170-200 million (even if the price tag is shared with several levels of government and others) with annual operating costs of $15-20 million to try collecting at most $4 million in lost fares is lunacy — especially if the complete data collection feature doesn’t work.
There is plenty of blame to go around for many of this plan’s shortcomings but as usual, no one will accept it.