rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:40 am
Why not just charge you for zone 4 if you don't tap out on the wallet or a fee if you don't have a zone 4 pass? It would work just like the Turnpike if you lose your ticket. You get charged the max rate.
I wouldn't consider the 2 situations to be equivalent. The Turnpike has multiple booths at every exit which limits backups even at rush hour, plus even if you're paying in cash there's protection from the weather. But if e.g. 50 people regularly exit a particular train but the station has only two validators that's going to create long backups even in good weather. I don't want to think what it would be like in a December sleet storm.
Charging the max rate for errors is simply going to p-o a lot of people, especially during the rollout phase, which only adds to the Key's (well-deserved) bad rap. IMHO a better solution is for SEPTA to do the merely bleedin' obvious and offer enough validators to handle average expected loads. They should have data for boardings and alighting at most stations that would let them get reasonable estimates of demand.
JimBoylan wrote: ↑Mon Nov 18, 2019 12:13 pm
[Will]They make more money with a fee than by charging the difference in fare?
How will the travel wallet work if you want to ride and have enough to cover the fare, but not the fee and the fare? Will someone with an Anywhere pass still be charged a fee?
Excellent points. I think we can add those questions to the OOOPS! list, along with oversights like transit zone charges, senior RRD fares, etc. that no one bothered to consider. DC Metro has Exit Fare machines at every station to cover people who overdraw their SmarTrip balance. I can't see SEPTA managing anything comparable.
Random musings: What amazes me is that they apparently didn't do any serious user testing. I spent a good chunk of my career working on human/electronic system interactions; when a new system was being designed we'd often prototype things like UIs against actual user behavior. At the very least SEPTA could have simulated tap-off throughput by gathering groups of people, giving them sample cards, and seeing how smoothly everyone could get past the validators.
FWIW I was visiting the UK a few decades back when the Royal Mint introduced a new coin denomination (20p if you care
. Unlike this country where the US Mint just slammed the hapless Anthony dollar into circulation only to see it fail, the British had quantities of sample coins made up in different sizes, colors, etc. Then they "borrowed" banks, supermarkets, etc. during off hours, hired people to be test customers, had them make transactions with each design, and found out which one worked the best. The first day the coins went live there were almost no glitches and within a couple of weeks they were commonplace. Nothing beats good user testing!
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Requiem for it's/its, your/you're, than/then, less/fewer. They were once such nice words with such different meanings...