SEPTA NPT card will be "SEPTA Key"?

[MACTRAXX]

CV (and Everyone:)

The Shop Septa webpage ticket sales pages were discontinued a couple of months ago (October) closing
up sales of legacy Regional Rail tickets. During Summer 2019 the sales of legacy monthly passes online ended.

The legacy monthly passes that were available were for Regional Rail zones 1, 2, 3, Anywhere
and the Cross County. The pass sales would be available around the middle of the month earlier than
sale began each month at ticket offices which begin on the 20th for the next month's legacy passes.
(Legacy monthly passes would be available until the 10th of the new month.)

I liked to look at the monthly passes for sale since they would show what the design would be for each
new month. On the pictures of passes (and tickets) the word SAMPLE was used along with the mention
that passes and tickets could not be downloaded to prevent any illegal uses or counterfeiting.

With pass sales remaining available at open ticket offices it now pays to know which days and hours that
they are open. For example Paoli and Wilmington are the only stations outside Center City that have Sunday ticket office hours.

Both types of Independence Passes were once sold - Individual and Family - online along with the option
of ordering quantities for group sales. Legacy I Passes remain available at ticket offices currently.

It will be interesting to see how the conversion to the Key will go over the course of 2020...MACTRAXX

[ryan92084]

...snip
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.
snip...

Minor clarification on that point. You wouldn't use the travel wallet to purchase an independence pass on the train anyway. You would purchase an independence pass on your key card (in station/website/app/by phone) which is already available.

[rcthompson04]

...snip
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.
snip...

Minor clarification on that point. You wouldn't use the travel wallet to purchase an independence pass on the train anyway. You would purchase an independence pass on your key card (in station/website/app/by phone) which is already available.

Yes that is pretty much what I do on a daily basis when I don’t get monthly passes... order a daily Independence Pass for my Key card. I set it to auto load.

[rcthompson04]

I tried to buy a new Key at one of the Paoli-Thorndale line stations and was told by the staff you cannot buy a Key and buy Independence Passes for it, which I have done on again off again for months.

I was looking at getting a second card so I could use it in a one-off situation if I was taking my wife to the city while using the card myself. The station attendant did not even know you could buy passes on the Septa app.

I went and bought one from one of the TVMs in Suburban, registered it online and loaded a one day Independence Pass on it, which I was told was impossible just 45 minutes earlier in about a minute.

Pretty much solidified my thought that all stations except for a few should have the ticket offices closed down and TVMs installed.

[MACTRAXX]

RCT - some questions and thoughts:

1-Which station did you try and purchase this Key?
Keep in mind Key sales at many outlying ticket offices is new - it was implemented beginning in August and
September - some clerks may not yet know how to set the options offered by the Key. As described before
agents and clerks only have a small laptop computer and again a small scanning device to handle Key sales.

2-Closing ticket offices in favor of TVMs for Key sales is NOT what I would like to see happen. What is needed
is to further educate the sales employees at stations how to sell the Key along with learning what is available
and how to encode cards with any type of sales offered that is requested - such as an I Pass. With the TVMs
not particularly user-friendly to begin with I would rather deal with a human presence than a machine that
I know literally nothing about if I was a new rider at an outlying station. That is why many of the TVMs at
higher-volume locations such as in Center City have fare assistants helping riders when need be.

Over time as the Key becomes more established there should be an adequate balance between the use of
TVMs and ticket office sales to make the clear majority of riders happy - and again provided that the Key
eventually becomes as easy to use as the legacy passes that they will replace in the future...MACTRAXX

[ryan92084]

The agents are hamstrung by equipment, lack of training, and lack of any new information being passed down. Some of the larger stations (69th, center city, etc) have systems that are much more robust but unfortunately the information isn't much better. I can confirm while the outlying station's agents can sell a key card independence pass on a key card they weren't given any information about how that works and were told to just keep selling the old paper ones.

Its not a great solution but if any agent ever tells you they can't do something that you know you can do with a kiosk or app you can always load a card with an appropriate travel wallet balance and use the balance to make the purchase later. Just don't ask an outlying station agent to do it, they can't see the travel wallet balance or charge from it

[rcthompson04]

The agents are hamstrung by equipment, lack of training, and lack of any new information being passed down. Some of the larger stations (69th, center city, etc) have systems that are much more robust but unfortunately the information isn't much better. I can confirm while the outlying station's agents can sell a key card independence pass on a key card they weren't given any information about how that works and were told to just keep selling the old paper ones.

Its not a great solution but if any agent ever tells you they can't do something that you know you can do with a kiosk or app you can always load a card with an appropriate travel wallet balance and use the balance to make the purchase later. Just don't ask an outlying station agent to do it, they can't see the travel wallet balance or charge from it

When I tried to buy it at Malvern last week it was not a pleasant experience. I wonder if there is a plan to eliminate most manned ticket windows whenever the ticket office staff's contract is up. Several of the windows at Suburban have been taken out of service recently and the TVMs often have lines at them. There are also the "inactive" machines on the platforms at Suburban. What are those going to be used for exactly? I suspect manual reloading of Key cards with passes.

[MACTRAXX]

RCT: Did you think about going to Paoli to purchase your Key and passes?
With your experience at Malvern (two miles west of Paoli) I would have gone there as the next best - and closest - option.

Would purchasing any Legacy passes helped in this situation provided that they were available? You could have purchased legacy I Passes from either station that would be
valid through 2022 (they read 2019-2022) for $13 each instead of the extra Key.

When was the last time that you purchased a monthly legacy pass?
I would seek out the remaining stations where they are sold and purchase them as
long as they remain available.

In this case the thought is "You don't know what you had until it is gone." Remember
what legacy passes offer especially how easy it is to use them as compared to what
is turning out to be the hassles of the Key...MACTRAXX

[rcthompson04]

RCT: Did you think about going to Paoli to purchase your Key and passes?
With your experience at Malvern (two miles west of Paoli) I would have gone there as the next best - and closest - option.

Would purchasing any Legacy passes helped in this situation provided that they were available? You could have purchased legacy I Passes from either station that would be
valid through 2022 (they read 2019-2022) for $13 each instead of the extra Key.

When was the last time that you purchased a monthly legacy pass?
I would seek out the remaining stations where they are sold and purchase them as
long as they remain available.

In this case the thought is "You don't know what you had until it is gone." Remember
what legacy passes offer especially how easy it is to use them as compared to what
is turning out to be the hassles of the Key...MACTRAXX

I did inquire at Paoli and you can buy an Key card and place an Independence Pass on it. You can also buy legacy passes at Malvern from what I gathered on Tuesday.

I usually use the app to purchase fare products and have done so for months. My issue was just getting a second Key card and loading a fare product onto it before I synced it with the app. After buying one from a TVM in Suburban I am good to go.

[rcthompson04]

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2020/01/ ... -progress/

Some interesting points regarding tap-in/tap-out process:

CC stations to be gradually rolled out.

Failing to tap-out will lead to Zone 4 charge for wallet, but no clue if a separate fee will be assessed.

Apparently some sort of grace will be built in for monthly passes if you fail to tap out.

Conductors will be doing spot checking of Key cards (sort of surprised seeing I have been checked on almost every train for months except the busiest of trains).

[JeffK]

...2 validators
+ 75 exiting passengers
+ 1 cold November rainstorm
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
= CHAOS

[rcthompson04]

...2 validators
+ 75 exiting passengers
+ 1 cold November rainstorm
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
= CHAOS

Is there really only 2 validators? It needs to be clear that you can use any validator at a station. At my usual station, there are 6 on the outbound side (3 on the platform and 3 beneath the platform that can be used for parking as well) and 6 on the inbound side (similar 3/3 arrangement). All 12 can be used for tapping in and tapping out. That needs to be clear to everyone.

[ExCon90]

Ridley Park only has two on the outbound side, and a long push-pull evening express delivers a LOT of exiting passengers; large-scale dissatisfaction seems likely.

[rcthompson04]

Ridley Park only has two on the outbound side, and a long push-pull evening express delivers a LOT of exiting passengers; large-scale dissatisfaction seems likely.

I don’t see the point of making pass users tap out on the outbound side. Sure someone could take advantage of it, but those same riders would still need the right pass to get to Center City in the morning for example. I see the point of Travel Wallet passengers tapping though.

[MACTRAXX]

Everyone - from what I see here:

1-Controlled exit gating in Center City is going to be gradually implemented for riders
to get used to the new requirements of learning the tap in and out requirement of the Key. Good move here with this significant change for exiting at Center City stations.

2-Failure to tap out of the system at exit will incur the highest fare possible - what will
Trenton and West Trenton Line riders have to pay? Will it be the Zone NJ $10 on-board
fare? The only way to make a distinction if a rider does not tap in from another line is
for a Conductor to check on board which is not guaranteed.

3-Riders that use the single or 10 ride option of the Key are most susceptible to the
penalty charge. Monthly pass riders should not to have to pay any extra charges other
than a extension of ride depending on which zone and time of day the same as legacy
passes are charged.

RCT: Which station do you normally commute from?
I would rather describe the directions as eastbound and westbound in the case of the
Paoli/Thorndale Line.

For example Ridley Park on the Wilmington/Newark-bound side has just one main exit
off of the platform - in this case two readers are sufficient as EC90 notes. Will there
be more exit control implemented in the future on Regional Rail?

Has there been any mention on what SEPTA will do when readers are not in service?
This could be as a result of a variety of factors - vandalism is just one example.

There needs to be a way to report defective readers when they are found - such as
the distinct ID system I previously proposed with a three letter one number code -
The first two letters are the station; the third is the platform direction - N or S for
the Reading side and E or W for the Pennsy Side along with a number showing its
location on the platform in directional order on each side.

That's it for now...MACTRAXX