Universal transit card a hit in the San Francisco Bay Area

[marmar]

from the San Francisco Chronicle:




Clipper, the Bay Area's costly and long-delayed universal transit card, is gaining ground at a good clip since its official premiere in June, regional transit officials say.

But the fast pace at which Bay Area transit riders are switching to Clipper has at times overwhelmed the system, creating difficulties for users. And bigger challenges loom, starting with the elimination of some paper Muni Fast Passes in November, when they move entirely to Clipper. Clipper, a plastic card with an embedded computer chip, allows transit riders to pay fares by touching their cards to readers on fare gates, buses, ferries and trains operated by Muni, BART, AC Transit, Golden Gate Ferry and Transit and Caltrain. SamTrans and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority vehicles are scheduled to come aboard the system by the end of the year.

Eventually, regional transportation officials hope passengers on all of the Bay Area's two dozen transit agencies will use the cards to pay their way. But for now, officials are pleased with, but challenged by, the surge in use of the blue and white cards.

During the first week in August, Clipper cards were used 93,800 times to pay fares on the five transit agencies - an increase of 11 percent over the previous week, and up more than 240 percent compared with a year earlier when there was a soft launch of the program on the five systems.

With more people using Clipper, more problems have surfaced. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/22/MNQ21F0VSO.DTL#ixzz0xKvTg9FE

[xchrom]

1. those pictures make me so nostalgic.

that's where i lived til just a few months ago.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. We fled from there in 05.

No regrets.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Another way "debit" cards are replacing money.

Muni is getting a huge up front cash outlay from the customers, the card is essentially a pre-loaded debit card. I would be very surprised if there were no extra fees for people to load one of these cards, just as there are fees for giftcards, for PayPal. After all, the article says a private company is making the cards, readers, system. They are not doing it for free.
And did you catch in the article where it says that employees are given the cards as part of their benefits?

Debit cards are an enormous profit source for companies which specialize in making them, making the systems that use them, and these companies are busy planning new ways to make the cards mandatory.
Example: food stamps are debit cards, and by 2013 Soc. Sec. will be using them as an option between
mandatory automatic deposit of our checks or the card. ( the card has a fee to be used at ATMs).
Businesses are talking about using pre-loaded cards instead of paychecks. Saves a ton on printing, bookkeeping, etc.
I have read recently of debit card companies being bought up by well funded vulture companies.

something to keep an eye on...this is the future. Electronic money, less control by the public.

If you have not seen Minority Report, do. never mind the plot or the acting, watch the details of an electronic society and marvel at how much of the film reflects what is happening today and since it was made.

[frazzled]

4. No extra fees on our Chicago Card Plus cards

You pick a reload amount that you want put in when your account gets down to $10. When it gets down, the amount you've preselected is added to your card, no fees. Of course, it's linked to a credit card you've given them--so there are fees if you don't pay that credit card bill from which your transit money was deducted.

But the ease of always having transport fares at your fingertips, and just swiping through, is great. And I believe it has boosted ridership. I've had the card for 4 or 5 years, when it was first introduced. No complaints.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Merchants pay fees to credit card companies.

That is a hidden fee ( around 8%, most often) that the customer does not see, but is tacked onto the
price of the item you are charging on the credit card.
In fact, in my town, I get charged an extra 8% by some stores if I use a credit card instead of cash or check
( that on top of a 9.5% sales tax, is one reason I do not use a card in town).

In addition, the people who make the transit cards get paid. Again, a hidden fee to the transit user.

I agree that it is nice to have the card at your fingertips, I still have some BART cards lying around
from 2002, back when you shoved paper money into a machine and the machine printed out 5 or 10
bucks worth of "credit" on to a card it spit out at you. Of course, one always ended up having money left on the card, too small of an amount to use for a fare ( I think the minimum fare was around 2.00 at the time)
so you had to shove more money into the machine for another card.
eventually you could take all the small amount cards to a ticket agent and get a new card, most people did not have the time in rush hour to do so, so BART was picking up a good chunk of change from all those unused cards.

[frazzled]

6. That is why the new smart cards are better

No unused fares.

If you depend on public transportation, people are willing to pay a bit more. Whatever costs (and no, it's not in any way 8%. "On average the interchange rates in the US are 179 basis points (1.79%)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee); in addition, some new laws were passed in an amendment by Dick Durbin regarding interchange fees in the recent Financial Regulation legislation http://durbin.senate.gov/showRelease.cfm?releaseId=325810) are incurred from charging one's bus and train fares, it is offset by increased ridership, allowing the transit authority to keep fare hikes down.

You don't have to wait in line at a token station, missing your train while you wait for change, or in line on a bus, delaying the driver and getting the routes all off schedule.

And you're complaining about the "people who make the transit cards"? Jeebus, I'm glad it gives jobs to people.

If you only deal in cash, fine. The rest of the world is changing the way it trades in goods and services. We need new laws to regulate it for sure, but let's not bash advances in enhancing public transit ridership.

[TheMightyFavog]

9. I used the Oyster Card When I lived in London for two months.

I paid no extra fees to either get or top up my card.

I think I still carry it in my wallet for some reason.

[roody]

10. My debit card costs me nothing. I do not draw

cash at any ATM that is not my bank's.

[Gormy Cuss]

7. They're not universal and don't address the core problem which is balkanized mass transit.

It's far from universal even among the larger transit agencies, but let me say this loud and clear: the increase in popularity is directly linked to some participating agencies eliminating their own discount passes -- IOW their commuters don't have a choice if they want to receive discounts.

I predict that all hell will break loose when MUNI implements this change.

It's also not universal because there are so many local transit agencies, each with their own peculiar fare structures, and programming the card to behave correctly is a monumental task. Why the MTC didn't work to standardize fare rules across similar agencies before implementing this is beyond me, but then again, I do live in an area where mass transit administration is broken up into many little fiefdoms and no one seems inclined to consolidate.


eta: I forgot to mention my least favorite feature of Clipper: it costs $5 to merely get the card.
http://www.511contracosta.org/translink-becomes-clipper-today/

[Recursion]

8. Now you can get shot by a cop on 6 different transit systems! NT

[NuttyFluffers]

11. it's very simple to understand why; KISS (keep it stupid simple) theory works.

most people don't want to think about the physics that goes into the design of their hammer or stapler -- and neither do they want to think about their computer or their transportation. that's why things in life are delegated to specialist functionaries!

so engineering, transit coordination, pastry chef, blah blah blah specialist, can yammer all they want about all the neato! customizations they can do with their ultra-complex system. but the vast majority of humanity just WILL NOT CARE --JUST MAKE IT WORK AND GO AWAY.

hence KISS theory of design will always win out in the end. if you have to think too hard to use the product, people won't use the product. lazy? yes! but that's the nature of living organisms, save energy when and where they can.

[dickthegrouch]

12. I agree with Gormy

(and I know what Gormy means :) )

The insanity of having so many disparate agencies in such a small area is plain for all to see. The London Oyster card has been in place for many years and works with no fuss on all transit agencies and even some Museums. The Not Invented Here syndrome strikes again. Never mind that all the original design and major debugging has already been done. Each tiny Bay area transit fiefdom sucks the money out to the rich as every thing else is set up for.

The Clipper card isn't even compatible with the bridge toll mechanism so I have to fork out two sets of minimum deposits (pre-paid tolls) If I want to use both transit and my car.

And don't even get me started on the stupidity of Valley Transit Authority (VTA) requiring to me pay a new fare for every bus I get on, even if it is impossible to get from my house to Kaiser (5 miles away) without using three buses to get there and three to get back (and $1.75 per adult fare = $10.50 round trip, correct change required on each fare).

I wish they'd get their act together.