[URBAN NOTE] "The TTC is (Finally) Rolling Out Presto on Buses This Week"

[rfmcdonald]

At Torontoist, Chris Bateman describes how the TTC managed to install Presto card readers on its fleet of vehicles.

By the end of this year, the transit commission has pledged to complete its long-awaited switch to the electronic fare card and do away with physical tokens, tickets, day passes, and Metropasses.

Allan Foster is in charge of this largest mass deployment of new fare technology in TTC history. As the senior project manager of the TTC’s fare card system, he’s responsible for the team currently installing card readers and other electronic devices in each of the TTC’s 1,900 buses.

Every night between 9:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m., about a dozen workers—a mix of TTC staff and Metrolinx contractors—make alterations to approximately 10 vehicles, laying wires and connecting communication antenna so that by the next morning riders with Presto cards can pay their fares electronically.

“All of the work happens typically within three or four hours,” Foster says. “It’s almost an assembly line that we have on each vehicle.”