SEPTA NPT card will be "SEPTA Key"?

Is it Apple Pay as in "you can tap any contactless credit card, including Apple Pay"? Or are they using Apple's transit framework to actually provide SEPTA Key on Apple Pay?

If it's the former, I would expect it to cost more than using a Key card, and not be able to store passes, making it a non-starter for virtually all commuters. If it's the latter, that would be a huge step forward.

The former costs the same and allows transfers (using fare capping instead of passes, which is a more progressive option) in London. NYC is rolling out the same system. There's no reason (besides anti-user sentiment) for SEPTA set it up any other way.

My understanding (admittedly several months old) is that they plan to go the opposite direction. "Open" (i.e. app, credit-card) payments won't enjoy the same benefits/privileges as Key-paid fares. In other words, no transfers, 50¢ more on transit, and the surcharged price on RRD. Effectively the cash fare without using cash.

Does anyone have more recent information?

I'm actually a little surprised that it could possibly work on regional rail with the tap-in tap-out necessary.
I'd also be fine with the Apple Pay being the equivalent to the sucker fare. If only being used as a convenience at the gate instead of using a ticket machine, then pricing should be equivalent to the cash (lazy) fare. I'm probably old-fashioned though..

IMHO not having a Key is a problem beyond laziness because the card isn't always accessible or practical. So far most Key sales outlets are concentrated along "spine" routes rather than being widely available at supermarkets, convenience stores, etc. Beyond that SEPTA apparently isn't going to put QuickTrip TVMs at outlying stations. That all means most casual users can only buy fares before boarding if their ticket office is open - assuming there is a ticket office; about a third of RRD stations don't have one. Those limitations nail visitors and tourists as well as being inconvenient/impractical for families who'd need separate cards for each person. Even much-maligned operators like MBTA have TVMs at most or all stations.

It's of course a well-established practice for businesses to give a break to their regular customers. However SEPTA is a service as well as a business and it's supposed to be reasonably available to everyone. The Pew study shows that the Key's much more tilted towards SEPTA's "ideal passengers" than fare systems in most other cities they looked at, which says to me that it's in definite need of fixes.

JeffK wrote: ↑Fri Dec 20, 2019 1:43 pm It's of course a well-established practice for businesses to give a break to their regular customers. However SEPTA is a service as well as a business and it's supposed to be reasonably available to everyone. The Pew study shows that the Key's much more tilted towards SEPTA's "ideal passengers" than fare systems in most other cities studied, which says to me that it's in definite need of fixes.

The lack of TVMs is one of those things I have never understood for 11 years living in the area.

The Apple Pay/Samsung Pay rollout is another example of the "ideal rider" problem again. Sure it is great for someone like me who uses Apple Pay, but Apple Pay has not been widely used by the general public.

I don’t want the Apple Pay fare to be the “sucker fare”. Not at all. I use 10-trips, not a pass, and I would love to keep one less card in my wallet. I always have my phone with me.

With Apple’s Express Transit framework, transit transactions on Apple Pay are different and easier than typical transactions. You just tap the phone. The phone figures out that it’s a transit transaction, doesn’t ask you to authenticate with Touch ID or Face ID, and auto-selects the card you designate for transit transactions.

It’s a great potential solution for the transit debit cards that many commuters get through work (i.e. WageWorks). Set that card up in Apple Pay as a debit card, set it as your default for transit, and then just tap your phone when you walk by a reader. You don’t even need to unlock it or do anything on the phone itself—just tap.

This kind of convenience would generate some much-needed goodwill among the regional rail riders, who (from what I’ve seen) have not been happy with the Key rollout. It would be one less card in the wallet, and lessen the amount of card management (like TVMs and sending out replacement cards) for SEPTA.

If it’s a debit card, then there’s no transaction fee.

People were surprised and pleased at the announcement of SEPTA supporting Apple Pay; it’ll be a real bummer if all that good feeling evaporates when they find out that anyone using it has to pay more.

rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 20, 2019 1:57 pm The lack of TVMs is one of those things I have never understood for 11 years living in the area.

SEPTA's had a generally hostile attitude towards TVMs ever since their first efforts maybe 35 years ago. The machines looked a bit like large shop cabinets. Some of us called them "BOBs", or Big Orange Boxes. IIRC they only took cash, not that uncommon at the time, but at least you could buy a ticket before boarding. There was significant incentive because the surcharge policy was different then: if you paid on-board it was a flat $2 extra, a penalty that was generally well-publicized by signs at each station.

I don't remember the exact timeline but it seemed that within just a few years the BOBs were failing. SEPTA had trumpeted the "deal" they got by purchasing low-end machines but they turned out to be difficult to maintain, vandal-prone and most importantly, had hard-wired scanners that couldn't be upgraded. When the Treasury Dept. finally decided to replace those old 1920s-era currency designs in 1990 the machines' scanners couldn't be adjusted to recognize the new images. SEPTA tried to kludge a workaround at a few stations by adding change machines that could take the new bills, but (Hello?!) people weren't exactly thrilled having to deal with 5 or 10 bucks worth of coins for their tickets. Within a few more years the BOBs were gone.

Somewhere in that time frame the $2 surcharge was eliminated as well because too many riders were getting P-O'ed over being forced to pay it when the machines were removed. I was commuting from Norristown at the time and saw several very heated arguments including one that nearly ended up in a fist fight. SEPTA apparently decided, wisely, that conductors' safety was more important than the 2 bucks.

HOWEVER ... several years later the surcharge came back but this time cloaked in SEPTA-spin. Some bright bureaucrat at 1234 decided that as part of a fare increase ("adjustment", as they called it) the regular fare would be redefined as a discounted* fare and on-board fares would now have a variable increment that would reduce the amount of change conductors had to make. Finally the terms "surcharge" and "penalty" would be removed from schedules, signage, and even conductors' vocabularies**. (Got that??) Anyway, the level of obfuscation was enough that few people complained this time around.

Where the surcharge-that-isn't-a-surcharge intersects with TVMs is that once SEPTA realized how many riders were paying extra without major objections, it became a de facto fare increase. Given that the surcharge conceivably generates 2-3 million dollars in found money annually, there's essentially no incentive to install TVMs that would make life simpler or cheaper for riders.

* also ungrammatically labelled "advanced" purchase rather than "advance"

** I once challenged a conductor who was trying to spin the extra charge to a new rider who objected. He actually responded "There isn't a surcharge on board, it's just a higher fare". Yes, really.

Maybe their thought is changing as they have reduced the window staff at Suburban and the TVMs seem to be used frequently.

Jeff:

The first SEPTA "Fast Fare" TVMs were placed in Suburban Station back in 1984.
Most of the other TVMs dated from 1985 to 1987 that were placed around the system.

With the increasing unreliability of the TVMs as they got older train crews only applied the $2 penalty when
there was an open ticket office available. It was rare for train crews to charge a penalty at TVM stations even when they were "properly functioning".

RCT: The big advantage to purchasing legacy 10 ride and one way tickets from a ticket office is that they
are valid for six months from the date of sale. The current TVMs sell tickets that are only valid for one day.

Taking away the flexibility of ANY future purchase of tickets for the so-called TVM "convenience" is not what
the majority of riders would accept if SEPTA plans to replace staffed ticket offices with more TVMs.

MACTRAXX

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:50 am
RCT: The big advantage to purchasing legacy 10 ride and one way tickets from a ticket office is that they
are valid for six months from the date of sale. The current TVMs sell tickets that are only valid for one day.

Taking away the flexibility of ANY future purchase of tickets for the so-called TVM "convenience" is not what
the majority of riders would accept if SEPTA plans to replace staffed ticket offices with more TVMs.

MACTRAXX

I agree with your comments on the TVM's. The Quiktrips being limited to a day instead of an extended period of time does not make sense.

Just set the whole thing up like they do in London. When you use contactless (Apple Pay, Contactless credit card, etc) you tap in and out as normal and it calculates your fare accordingly. When you reach the daily cap it acts like you have a daily pass and the rest of your trips are free, same when you hit weekly and monthly caps. It all happens behind the scenes with no input from the rider. Of course their proprietary Oyster Card works as well.

Last time was there I just walked off the Eurostar, down the corridor to the tube. Taped with my phone and offer I went. No stop at a ticket window or TVM. If it works for one of the largest transit systems in the world it should be fine for little old Philadelphia.

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:50 am The first SEPTA "Fast Fare" TVMs were placed in Suburban Station back in 1984.
Most of the other TVMs dated from 1985 to 1987 that were placed around the system.

With the increasing unreliability of the TVMs as they got older train crews only applied the $2 penalty when there was an open ticket office available. It was rare for train crews to charge a penalty at TVM stations even when they were "properly functioning".

Thanks for filling in the specific dates. I knew it was during the mid-1980s because I'd started a new job in CC in '85; the "Fast Fare" machines had only recently gone on line, with the BOBs showing up a while afterward.*

My recollection is that waiving the $2 penalty was maybe 50/50. During the TVMs' first years I saw plenty of set-tos between passengers and conductors over whether machines really were inoperable, although as you noted a lot of conductors were more forgiving as breakdowns became more frequent.

Taking away the flexibility of ANY future purchase of tickets for the so-called TVM "convenience" is not what the majority of riders would accept if SEPTA plans to replace staffed ticket offices with more TVMs.

And there you've nailed a core failure of the Key's design: It's taken away many of the flexible options that people had under the legacy system, both for transit and commuter rail. E.g. as clunky and inefficient as those old tokens were they were at least shareable, could be bought for exactly as many round trips as you needed, and didn't expire.

An underlying principle of systems design is that upgrades shouldn't take away core functionality, or if it's unavoidable then an equivalent alternative should be offered. The Key's done neither.

Sean@Temple wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 10:27 am Last time I was [in London] I just walked off the Eurostar, down the corridor to the tube. Tapped with my phone and off I went. No stop at a ticket window or TVM. If it works for one of the largest transit systems in the world it should be fine for little old Philadelphia.

My daughter lived in Berlin about a decade ago. The U-Bahn had something similar. Meanwhile SEPTA was still trying to figure out what its (then) NPT system would look like.


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* In partial fairness to SEPTA, the decision to buy machines with hardwired scanners may not have been completely unreasonable at the time. The Treasury had been issuing essentially the same bill designs for over half a century. Even though there'd been low-level talk of a potential redesign, opposition to changing anything was strong in Congress (no surprise there!). No one thought it might happen anytime soon, nor that it would be as extensive as what actually happened.

Sean@Temple wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 10:27 am Just set the whole thing up like they do in London. When you use contactless (Apple Pay, Contactless credit card, etc) you tap in and out as normal and it calculates your fare accordingly. When you reach the daily cap it acts like you have a daily pass and the rest of your trips are free, same when you hit weekly and monthly caps. It all happens behind the scenes with no input from the rider. Of course their proprietary Oyster Card works as well.

Last time was there I just walked off the Eurostar, down the corridor to the tube. Taped with my phone and offer I went. No stop at a ticket window or TVM. If it works for one of the largest transit systems in the world it should be fine for little old Philadelphia.

Yeah the London system is pretty nice with how it automatically caps at the best deal. Its how their oyster card worked and how I assumed the "NPT" would work when they first announced it but instead we got "key". Funny how SEPTA was supposed to be one of the first with open payment https://www.masstransitmag.com/technolo ... nt-systems

And yes don't expect to get a discount rate for city transit when using open payment at least not at first. I haven't seen anything about station versus on board pricing for the train.

Instead, it will merely charge your credit card, which means you won’t get the Travel Wallet discount of 50 cents per ride, or the TransPass bulk discount. SEPTA says it will eventually aim to integrate its existing fare systems into Apple Pay.

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/12/ ... apple-pay/

I also just noticed that the online SEPTA ticket store has been depreciated https://shop.septa.org/

Shop.SEPTA.org is no longer available.

Please visit www.SEPTAKey.org to purchase passes (Daily, Weekly and Monthly). You will need to have a Key Card and register it.

I guess we are going all in on forcing this key card. Now people cannot get 10 trips mailed to their house, they have to go to a station to buy a ticket or key card, or in the case of the Paoli line during weekends they have to take the train into center city to buy a key card which cannot be used for the travel wallet as of now because they no longer sell independence passes on the train. Almost seems like they are forcing that stupid onboard surcharge in a roundabout manner. It's hard enough to convince people to use mass transit but I cannot for the life of me explain to people the mechanisms of this system without sounding like a madman