When I buy a two zone ticket in Vancouver (zone 1) and look at the map in Richmond (zone 2), the map in Richmond shows I am yet in yellow zone 1. Then why did I buy two zone ticket?
In fact beside being shown in the same yellow color, it is labeled with ā1ā, in all zones.
Please take a look at the photos of old vending machines:
Vending machine in Vancouver Zone 1:
shows Vancouver zone 1 in yellow.
Vending machine in Surrey Zone 3:
shows Surrey zone 3 in yellow and labeled ā1ā.
For the best of convenience of Translink users, and to avoid conflicts, zone map should remain unchanged throughout all zones.
And they said that I am delusional that, I do not see the real world, accusing me in being threat to the public.
IMHO I think this is quite good of Translink. Depending on where you buy the ticket, each map tells you exactly where you can travel with a Zone 1, 2 or 3 ticket.
So if you are in Richmond and want to travel to Vancouver, the Richmond machine clearly shows that you need a Zone 2 ticketā¦ and vice versa.
This stops the problem of someone in Burnaby who wants to travel to New West (both Zone 2, from Vancouver) not knowing if they should buy a Zone 1 or Zone 2 ticket because at both stations the ticket machines will show that only a Zone 1 ticket is needed.
Total cash grab.
If I want to go from Marine Drive to Riverport - 1 Stop - check in - check
out thats 2 zones
Compared to Waterfront Downtown to Joyce Station - manyā¦ stops - check in
check out - 1 zone.
Then there is the $5 surcharge from YVR
The colors and the confusing re-arrangement of the colored zones is just
one more smoke screen to cover up the scandal.
To justify $200million and climbing, the system just has to be more
complicated than simple recycled paper transfers issued if needed, or
heaven forbid a free transit system that is paid for by taxes on $million
properties who have the benefit of the system but dont use it.
I agree with @Neo stick to one color dedicated for each zone. But then a
Kindergartner could have designed that and not a consulting engineer!
F
With advanced electronic, computer controlled compass cards, Translink could have improved it much better, for instance total value deducted be proportional to distance and time traveled. This would be easy to do since compass card is computer. I also find it violating the original - ātoken drop lets you in the train systemā tapping in tapping out is like dropping a token to get in and then dropping another to get out. And user is not in control of the digital money that is on that card. Yet sticking to the same color zones would be more serious and liable way to communicate to Translink users.
The map in Surrey tells me I am in zone 1 again after traveling from Vancouver on 3 zones ($5.50 value) ticket. It is not my job to fix their mistakes, I do not get paid for it, yet it comes out of my pocket.
I think - or hope! - that once Translink gets the kinks out of the system, they will change to a distance-based approach instead of a zone approach. Then, it will be cheaper to go from Marine Dr. to Bridgeport.
Of course, that means that those of us who take the bus regularly should tap in and out so that Translink has an idea of where people travel.
Also, I think it might be clearer if they reworded the maps on the machines. Instead of Zone 1, Zone 2, Zone 3, they should show ā1 zoneā, ā2 zonesā, ā3 zonesā. By identifying an area as Zone 1, Iām assuming it is always Zone 1, not a single zone.
Get rid of transit fares. Honour system failed. Police enforcement failed. CompassPass failed. Putting points on our driverās licenses to enforce unpaid fines didnāt work either. Lets get rid of it all.
Nobody fumbling with change holding up everyone getting onto the bus, using both front entrance and rear exits simultaneously. Faster bus rides, less traffic. No ticket system, no cost from maintenance from collecting or from accounting all the money. No money wasted on Upass, fare savers, maintaining skytrain ticket machines or coin payment fare machines. No money wasted making people pay their fines at the motor vehicles branch, lines there are long enough as it is. No cops checking tickets. No money wasted employing people maintain a system that doesnāt even pay for itself. No more time wasted on something doesnāt work.
Get the police back on police work. Get drivers onto the buses/skytrains. Get cars off the road. Get people where they need to go. And get the millions of tax dollars wasted back into our bank accounts.
Cause who are we kidding, its coming out of our wallets either way. We are paying for it, lets go with whatever costs us the least amount. Right?
Iāve lived in cities which tried some of these approaches. Thereās always tradeoffs.
Seattle used to have the entire downtown as a free transit zone. They ended it a few years ago, as it had paradoxic costs larger than one would expect - fare enforcement no longer an issue, but a much greater need for transit cops, made the busses more unpleasant, which hurt ridership, and so on. Getting rid of it slowed down loading slightly, but you can do multidoor loading while still having fares - RFID cards make that easy, as the rear doors now already have a reader.
They did net raise revenue by millions of dollars by discontinuing the downtown free zone, if youāre going to get rid of fares, itās for ideological reasons, not a net cost savings.
Toronto has a single fare zone for the entire city, but it drives that fare significantly higher - TTC fare is something like 40% more than 1 zone Vancouver, but only 70% of three zone, so short journeys were really pricey, while huge suburb train trips really cheap, which makes it harder for them to amortize the cost of new infrastructure, and contributed to their lack of new transit infrastructure in the last few decades.
I think the ācolour = number of zonesā was from the faresavers, the tickets themselves were coloured yelow/red/green - so you looked at the colour of the station you were going to, then used that colour faresaver. Obsoleted by Compas, but I can understand them not wanting to redo all the zone maps when it seems likely that distance based fares for skytrain will be coming sooner or later.
Honestly, other than the slow rollout, compas has been pretty slick for me in practice since the launch - no need for a bunch of extra paper in my wallet, no needing to go somewhere else to buy tickets, no needing to carry cash for busesā¦ has anyone had serious issues with the system once it finally got under way?
Not to derail @Neoās thread, but my one single gripe with Compass is the ten year long record of every trip you make. Purge it, anonymize it after 30 days, aggregate the trip stats after 15/30/60 days and Iāll be happy to use it. There simply is no business need to keep 10 years of individual trips for every rider in the system.
Never mind that Compass was meant to reduce fare evasion, but I think it is costing more than the recovered fares.
Enviromentally I think itās a disaster, were before the fares were paper and compostable, the new ones contain a plastic element that is now litering the streets undamaged by nature.
Iām in full agreement, at least on this side of the Fraser. However, the majority who voted against increased transit funding is clearly against such a principle. As is the provincial government that more or less forced fare gates (and Compass) on Translink despite their reluctance and the data showing it would only have a negative effect on revenue (but is probably effective at limiting the mobility of the lower classā¦).
After some pondering I was able to figure out what the map represented, with a knowledge of how our transit fares are structured. I donāt think itās well designed enough for those who are not familiar - who are the folks who need good communications. Hopefully @jon is right and distance billing is coming soon. IIRC it was in the public roadmap for Compass at some point. Then simple diagrams will no longer suffice ;).
If this doesnāt leave a bad taste in your mouth, I donāt know what to tell you:
Barrier-free system[edit]
BC Transit, and later, TransLink, took the position that the barrier-free proof of payment system was more effective than having fare gates or turnstiles. In the early 2000s they estimated a five percent fare evasion rate, or approximately two million dollars or less per year. Fare checks and fines issued inside āfare paid zonesā kept the rates at that level. Since the staff conducting the checks - SkyTrain Attendants and Transit Police - would still be required even with physical fare barriers, the cost of installing and maintaining a barrier fare system would be much more costly.[9]
Provincial government decision[edit]
Late in 2007, the provincial Minister of Transportation, Kevin Falcon, announced interest in the installation of an access-controlled fare system.[10]
In March 2008, Ken Dobell, a lobbyist for Cubic Corporation, started talks with Minister Kevin Falcon with the intention of selling technology to TransLink. Dobell, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbellās former deputy minister, had just been found guilty of breaching the Lobbyists Registration Act.[11]
Then, in April 2009, leading up to the provincial election campaign, the Office of the Premier, Government of Canada, and TransLink announced the implementation of fare gates and smart cards.[12]
Time frame and costs[edit]
TransLink confirmed in October 2013 that the cost overrun for the Compass Card system would reach $23 million due to delay related inflation and unanticipated scope creep. The Compass Card system was originally budgeted at $171 million, but has since risen to $194 million.[13]
tl;dr
Translink fought for decades against a Compass-card-like system, but it finally got pushed through by the BC Liberal government, and is unlikely to ever pay itself off - For reference, Translink is paying Cubic Corporation $12 million a year to run the system.
As @ktims said, the entire reason it was pushed through was, āwell that poor person didnāt pay, and that makes me mad!ā Despite that situation being statistically insignificant, we are all paying for it.
I donāt think that āCompass likeā and Barrier Free are contradictory - see the Link in Seattle, or Sydney streetcars, for instance.
IIRC, Translink supported smart cards, but was against faregates.
Iāll happily agree that faregates are a loss, will never recoup their costs, and that it was a poor move for the provincial gov to mandate they be introduced in parallel.
It is too much for me to read; though, have suddenly switch from simple purchase of validated ticket with a drop of a coin, or insert of a bill for 90 minutes of free travel, to purchase - tap - track time - tap ā¦ with not being able to check the remaining time with compass ticket, it is just too much inconvenience in using Translink services. According to R. Wallace, and CPTED perspectives - restricting access, or too much control (at access points) have proven to increase crime rate and fear of crime.
I think Translink should pay me to do all the tapping work and for bothering me with all the technological imposition onto once comfortable transit system. With new compass cards, here is less control of money on it, I like to have a choice of whether to spend those two dollars, or not.
Yet, I think there is big religious point, for that is just restriction to free movement, restriction of personal money, higher costs, obstruction to movement. For instance, what we have now is less comfortable and more puzzling, bothering transportation means within the city (highly developed Metro) and more of technological obstruction to free living, such as giant prices for land lots, which are now more difficult to travel to on exhausting transit system.
Dear @InezG: those are hopes that many of us just have. I doubt it will ever happen. I agree with you that wording is important; though, technically it would not work. I think that best would be to keep one color for each zone and change wording accordingly for big yellow patches are obvious in busy places that train stations are.
I never violated Translink Law, whether it was walking in the back door of B-Line, or Sky Train, I always had appropriate fare ticket with time, it was valid till, stamped on it. But with this imposition of new compass system, which seriously bothers me, they made it morally offensive to me.
