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Ventra - Bugs, Feedback, and Questions


Busjack

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If there is a politcial fallout.Who will be told to hit the road?

I made a prediction (was it here or there--it was there) that Claypool will eventually get that treatment, just like Madigan reportedly told Daley to ditch Kruesi if the CTA wanted to get its tax increase.

Although I have accused Claypool of more egregious stuff, this might provide enough publicity to do it.

If either the underling in the Revenue Department or a rubber stamp on the CT Board gets it, nobody (at least in the press) will care. Terry Peterson seems to be a bigger liar, but acts like a figurehead.

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If there is a politcial fallout.Who will be told to hit the road?

Claypool. He says the CTA won't push people for Ventra's optional Debit Card, but he promoted it's feature to those with low incomes who don't have bank accounts. CTA shouldn't have a President who changes his position on something based on a line of questions from media or in this case, political figures.

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Claypool.

He says the CTA won't push people for Ventra's optional Debit Card, but he promoted it's feature to those with low incomes who don't have bank accounts. CTA shouldn't have a President who changes his position on something based on a line of questions from media or in this case, political figures.

I had said that his picture is in the dictionary next to the definition of corporate speak, and cited a recent Dilbert.

But maybe today's is more in point (if we assume that Claypool is the robot).

It does seen interesting Peterson wasn't at the meeting on Monday

What meeting? On the $3.00 Ventra ticket?

Anyway, I cited him for being the one to say "we listen" both that the Crowding Reduction Hearing and the Budget Hearing, when that proved not to be the case.

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The amount of time Revenue Department spend on this and didn't get the job done right.How long has it been since nameing rights for train stations was suppose to be happening still hasn't happen.This is why the CTA shouldn't be a place for politcians to dump people here.

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For anyone who cares, WLS890 just had a "news promo" that Claypool will be on Connected with Chicago Sunday at 7 a.m.

The clip had Bill Cameron questioning about the $5 fee to buy a Ventra Card "even if I don't want to pay it," and even in that clip, Claypool was stammering. Cameron finally had to summarize what Claypool was saying (i.e. people would just throw away the plastic card).*

________

*Also made "The Top 4 at 4" [actually 4:30].

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For anyone who cares, WLS890 just had a "news promo" that Claypool will be on Connected with Chicago Sunday at 7 a.m.

The clip had Bill Cameron questioning about the $5 fee to buy a Ventra Card "even if I don't want to pay it," and even in that clip, Claypool was stammering. Cameron finally had to summarize what Claypool was saying (i.e. people would just throw away the plastic card).*

________

*Also made "The Top 4 at 4" [actually 4:30].

Which would be dumb on those folks' part since the actual Ventra Card itself and not the ticket would be similar to the current Chicago Card in that regard among other CTA transit characteristics. How hard is it for him to point out that people are paying a $5 fee for a Chicago Card now and have that converted to a transit credit upon registration under the current system? And how hard is it for him to explain that the transit features would be just like those of the current Chicago Card where in addition to that common $5 fee like the Chicago card fee, the passenger would have an option of using it as a deduct as you go transit card or an unlimited ride pass with the difference being the unlimited ride pass load options under Ventra includes the other multiday passes and not just the 30 day option?

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Let's not forget, it's Claypool. If he spoke conventional English, he would not have made The Top 4 at 4.

Maybe some day Emanuel figures that out.

Yeah he's an expert in corporate double speak if I remember your observation correctly. Some of the confusion and fear stirred up with this card would be reduced if he just spoke conventional English and stressed the transit side of it. You're not going to totally eliminate the concerns over the debit option because as every prepaid debit card has some kind of fee associated with it. But even there that probably could have been reduced at least if he knew how to communicate in plain English and not the double speak that raises folks' hackles to smell scam. I wouldn't characterize the debit option as a scam. It's a legitimate business. It's just one whose services I won't use because I have a regular credit card as well as a debit card linked to my debit card linked to my savings and checking accounts and both cards are issued by banks. And the other reason being that the prepaid debit card is a legitimate business that doesn't come with the same consumer protections that are there for bank issued cards.

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Yeah he's an expert in corporate double speak if I remember your observation correctly. Some of the confusion and fear stirred up with this card would be reduced if he just spoke conventional English and stressed the transit side of it. ....

Unless WLS-AM messed up the clip (and I'm not getting up at 7 a.m. to find out), the context seemed to be the transit side of the card, as you first commented. Of course, CTA also gave a confused explanation of the debit side of the card, too.

Maybe getting back to the point about the Chicago Card you previously mentioned, the confusion should have been cleared up based on that, other than the Ventra ticket, this supersedes all the cardboard stored media, which didn't have a deposit up to now.

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Why do they make this so disgustingly complicated!!! Leave it to CTA (Mis)Management to lead the way! I could care less about this entire Ventra fiasco. Im sticking with the SVC. Ventra is going to be a total failure! It wont last long!

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Why do they make this so disgustingly complicated!!! Leave it to CTA (Mis)Management to lead the way! I could care less about this entire Ventra fiasco. Im sticking with the SVC. Ventra is going to be a total failure! It wont last long!

  • If you mean stored value card, you won't be able once the transition period ends, for the reason that CTA says that the equipment that reads it is obsolete and will be yanked out. See the discussion above about the magnetic strip cards being phased out.
  • While I am in favor of a truly open standards fare system (i.e. using any RFID card to pay a fare), I'll agree with you that CTA is certainly botching this up, especially not heavily promoting the open standards part, but mostly pushing its bad transit card replacement and getting enmeshed on the debit card side. Then the RTA complicated it even more by not describing how the reduced fare card would work (i.e. can one use it as identification but a bank issued RFID bank card to pay the fare?).
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Why do they make this so disgustingly complicated!!! Leave it to CTA (Mis)Management to lead the way! I could care less about this entire Ventra fiasco. Im sticking with the SVC. Ventra is going to be a total failure! It wont last long!

I'm curious what you and others who are predicting total failure believe CTA is going to use for fare collections then when the plan is to remove the parts of the fareboxes that read the Chicago Cards and magnetic strip cards? But anyway, I heard a radio ad this morning on one of the predominantly Black radio stations and it went through a simplified run through of how the cards would work, but noticeably made NO mention of the prepaid debit options that has so many people up in arms.

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Why do they make this so disgustingly complicated!!! Leave it to CTA (Mis)Management to lead the way! I could care less about this entire Ventra fiasco. Im sticking with the SVC. Ventra is going to be a total failure! It wont last long!

Obviously CTA agrees with you on it being complicated or they wouldn't be rolling out Ventra buses. When the service starts up there is going to be alot of late service because operators are going to have to explain to customers what happened with their cards over and over. Customers are just going to have to learn to be more savvy or they will be a little lighter in the wallet.

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...When the service starts up there is going to be alot of late service because operators are going to have to explain to customers what happened with their cards over and over. Customers are just going to have to learn to be more savvy or they will be a little lighter in the wallet.

One would hope that the kinks (including informing the passengers) would be worked out during the transition period. Obviously, the objective fails if on switch-over day, service is fouled up due to arguments with boarding passengers.

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Why not just outfit the Paratransit buses with the Ventra readers? It's gotta be cheaper, and less chance of the cell phone being taken home by an operator by accident.

One would guess they'd have some system in place to record that a paratransit operator was given a cell when they started work and that that operator returned it at the end of their work day similar to how your employer Jewel keeps track of those handheld radios used by store security and those handheld units that certain employees use for price integrity, ordering, inventory and other product record keeping purposes..

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Why not just outfit the Paratransit buses with the Ventra readers? It's gotta be cheaper, and less chance of the cell phone being taken home by an operator by accident.

I would also figure that this is a cheaper solution than paying Cubic to put its readers into about 400 Pace owned suburban paratransit buses, plus probably thousands of contractor owned paratransit vans in the city.

Also, the cell phone provides a data link, although the new Pace owned paratransit vehicles supposedly have their own gps system.

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I would also figure that this is a cheaper solution than paying Cubic to put its readers into about 400 Pace owned suburban paratransit buses, plus probably thousands of contractor owned paratransit vans in the city.

Also, the cell phone provides a data link, although the new Pace owned paratransit vehicles supposedly have their own gps system.

Pretty much that's what sums it up. You don't need a terminal especially if you have technology in the palm of your hand.

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Pretty much that's what sums it up. You don't need a terminal especially if you have technology in the palm of your hand.

I also thought of that if the passengers are using the wheelchair lift and have to be secured first, they won't be passing a fixed reader, but the driver can bring the phone to them.

I noted the phone, basically for the reason that an open standards system offers possibilities we haven't yet contemplated.

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I also thought of that if the passengers are using the wheelchair lift and have to be secured first, they won't be passing a fixed reader, but the driver can bring the phone to them.

I noted the phone, basically for the reason that an open standards system offers possibilities we haven't yet contemplated.

I'm sure the development team can create something through a QR reader, NFC, or RFID (Phones do accept Square, but I think they would need to be modified to accept transit fares).

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I'm sure the development team can create something through a QR reader, NFC, or RFID (Phones do accept Square, but I think they would need to be modified to accept transit fares).

In this case, undoubtedly only RFID, since that is the basis for the entire Ventra system.

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