Ventra - Bugs, Feedback, and Questions

[brownliner]

Yes, but if we believe only 5 percent of the riders were overcharged, as Cubic would like us to believe, then that's not a crisis and shouldn't have any media exposure. The attention of the media itself tells us it's an epidemic happening to more than 1 out of every 20 riders. The statistic that is missing in all this how many are using Ventra and how many are not and how many have switched to transit cards because they can't use Ventra. I'll say this out of $30 in rides I've heard of from friends and myself this card has overcharged us 3 to 4 times, so the pattern seems to be by about every $10 dollars in rides you will be overcharged at least once. If you look at my original statement you'll see I said "by the time they get to $10 dollars". So far that statement is undefeated in my experiences in that part of the card.

To the non believers out there, I challenge you to put $10 on a card and try it out for yourself and you'll see what I mean. those riding with a pass all the time or not at all don't have the negative experience to back up their statements. Let experience be your teacher and don't make statements based on no personal experience.

The two cards in my account have spent rather more than $50, and I have not seen any double charges. I know there are some missing transactions on mine; not sure about the other.

[Busjack]

Yes, but if we believe only 5 percent of the riders were overcharged, as Cubic would like us to believe, then that's not a crisis and shouldn't have any media exposure.....

Do you have a source for that 5% statement?

The only 5% I saw was that CTA said it was shorted fares on 5% of its Ventra transactions (Tribune). As I quoted before, "But [Claypool] said uncollected fares, up to 5 percent of Ventra transactions, represent "an unacceptably high number of instances. … We will look at it, we will quantify it and will work with our lawyers.""

What you did gets back to owine's original "guess how many were overcharged." My answer then and my answer now is enough to make a stink, but it will take an audit to find out. You don't know.

[BusHunter]

The two cards in my account have spent rather more than $50, and I have not seen any double charges. I know there are some missing transactions on mine; not sure about the other.

Are you experiencing any stop messages? If not you must have one of the working cards. I'm still getting stop messages myself. On Pace i had to do five taps to ride, a new record for me, but using the card as a pass makes that irrelevant. Can someone explain how the card is charging for passbacks on a pass. I have yet to experience this an don't understand how it's occuring.

[Busjack]

Are you experiencing any stop messages? If not you must have one of the working cards. I'm still getting stop messages myself. On Pace i had to do five taps to ride, a new record for me, but using the card as a pass makes that irrelevant. Can someone explain how the card is charging for passbacks on a pass. I have yet to experience this an don't understand how it's occuring.

It was previously established on the CTA Tattler that if you have autoload, you can get a negative balance if the system thinks it is a passback. If you don't you just get refused.

[busfan2847]

Yes, but if we believe only 5 percent of the riders were overcharged, as Cubic would like us to believe, then that's not a crisis and shouldn't have any media exposure. The attention of the media itself tells us it's an epidemic happening to more than 1 out of every 20 riders. The statistic that is missing in all this how many are using Ventra and how many are not and how many have switched to transit cards because they can't use Ventra. I'll say this out of $30 in rides I've heard of from friends and myself this card has overcharged us 3 to 4 times, so the pattern seems to be by about every $10 dollars in rides you will be overcharged at least once. If you look at my original statement you'll see I said "by the time they get to $10 dollars". So far that statement is undefeated in my experiences in that part of the card.

To the non believers out there, I challenge you to put $10 on a card and try it out for yourself and you'll see what I mean. those riding with a pass all the time or not at all don't have the negative experience to back up their statements. Let experience be your teacher and don't make statements based on no personal experience.

I have been using the Ventra card to pay for single rides for over a month and have racked up ~$35 in fares with no overcharging at all. On Monday, when I did want to pay for someone else at the same time the driver had to press the appropriate button several times before it would register the second charge instead of Stop!

It does not happen to everyone who is paying for each ride with Ventra.

[busfan2847]

Are you experiencing any stop messages? If not you must have one of the working cards. I'm still getting stop messages myself. On Pace i had to do five taps to ride, a new record for me, but using the card as a pass makes that irrelevant. Can someone explain how the card is charging for passbacks on a pass. I have yet to experience this an don't understand how it's occuring.

There is a key the driver has to press to allow a passback. I cannot remember what the text is on the Ventra screen but it is on the right hand side towards the bottom.

[Amtrak41]

"Metra hoping to jump on the Ventra bandwagon by August"

http://www.suntimes.com/23623439-761/metra-hoping-to-jump-on-the-ventra-bandwagon-by-august.html

[owine]

"Metra hoping to jump on the Ventra bandwagon by August"

http://www.suntimes.com/23623439-761/metra-hoping-to-jump-on-the-ventra-bandwagon-by-august.html

August 2015 that is. Sounds like the implementation will be similar to what I penciled in my head for it.

[artthouwill]

August 2015 that is. Sounds like the implementation will be similar to what I penciled in my head for it.

The byline on the article says August. Since it is a "pilot" program, then that tells me that it will be tested in August of 2014. January, 2015 is the deadline for all three agencies to be under a regional universal fare paying system. Whether Metra can meet the deadline has yet to be seen. There is potential for a new set of wrinkles with Metra that haven't been encountered by CTA or Pace.

[owine]

Here's where I got August 2015 from:

However, Metra hopes to pilot a handheld device for conductors by August 2015 that would accept the “transit” side of Ventra cards, as well as bank cards with radio frequency identification -- or “contactless’’ -- chips, Ciavarella said. The conductor may have to enter a rider’s beginning and ending Metra travel zone into a hand-held device as part of the process, officials said.

[artthouwill]

Here's where I got August 2015 from:

The beginning of the article you referenced states:

Metra hopes to jump on the Ventra bandwagon by next August with a trial

run at handheld devices for train conductors that would accept Ventra

cards as payment on trains, an advisory board was told Friday.

The article makes mention of the January 2015 deadline to be under a universal fare payment system. It seems to be a typo on the part of the S-T.

[Busjack]

Here's where I got August 2015 from:

I think the only relevance of that date is the state law that says they have to do something about an open standards fare system by then. So, sure, Metra is going to say that.

[Amtrak41]

Didn't say anything about having to tap into the system at a downtown terminal turnstile, get charged for Zone M, to get a partial refund when you tap out at your suburban station, which is what SEPTA will do. Of course, they also have thru-running, and 3% of the riders ride thru Center City.

[Busjack]

I think the only relevance of that date is the state law that says they have to do something about an open standards fare system by then. So, sure, Metra is going to say that.

In fact, the law says by Jan. 2015, so August would be 8 months late (PA 97-85, amending RTA Act sec. 2.04).

Didn't say anything about having to tap into the system at a downtown terminal turnstile, get charged for Zone M, to get a partial refund when you tap out at your suburban station, which is what SEPTA will do. Of course, they also have thru-running, and 3% of the riders ride thru Center City.

There are two consultants studying the system. As I noted before, doing it as SEPTA proposes would be totally unfeasible, given the passenger load at the stations.

[owine]

August 2015 appears to be a typo. I just looked at the article again and it says:

However, Metra hopes to pilot a handheld device for conductors by August 2014 that would accept the “transit” side of Ventra cards, as well as bank cards with radio frequency identification -- or “contactless’’ -- chips, Ciavarella said. The conductor may have to enter a rider’s beginning and ending Metra travel zone into a hand-held device as part of the process, officials said.

[jajuan]

It was previously established on the CTA Tattler that if you have autoload, you can get a negative balance if the system thinks it is a passback. If you don't you just get refused.

Which is why I said when he first brought up the stop screen that getting one does not automatically mean the rider had that tap read as a fare deduction being registered to contribute toward that person's eventually discovered negative balance. It should be remembered that some who ran into negative balances discovered.that they fell victim to the scenario of getting charged a whole second fare at the same exact instant that ride registered as the transfer ride it was supposed to be

[BusHunter]

#6706 had problems with it's ventra today. I scanned my card got two stop notices and then on the third scan the screen went to processing and stayed there for three blocks or about three minutes. When the next rider scanned there card the screen just reset itself and never told me if my card was valid or not. Then further up the line the same thing happened and noone could pay by ventra. The reader seemed to lock up for a few minutes.

[owine]

This is clever.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ventra-fails/id733121316?mt=8

[BusHunter]

This is clever.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ventra-fails/id733121316?mt=8

Need for one to tell you when you get overcharged, and it emails Ventra over and over until they refund your money. I see his card failed at four out of between 12-15 spots. He's doing better than me. I'm about 50 percent on the stop notices. There's a turnstile at Addison/Brown line that hasn't received my card yet. (thank goodness there's more than one turnstile) Last night there were people on the #76 that were just being waived thru. There cards just were not working. The operator was saying do this do that and nothing worked. I can't believe he can't check a balance at least. Who is the purchaser/decision maker buying Ventra, the system? They must not have even tried it out.

[sw4400]

I had my first encounter with the "slow" Ventra reader yesterday on #1122 working route #9. I tapped my card, it said "Processing" for about 10 seconds, perhaps a little more before saying "GO". I checked my account and was deducted for the 7-Day Pass($0.00). I know awhile back probably on here there was talk about being charged by the reader if you left via the front doors. That's not always true, you just have to not tap where your cards are by the Ventra reader. The same equally can be said for the Chicago Card/Chicago Card Plus readers. You hit the area where the card is up near that reader and it can read and deduct from there. Nobody ever complained about that when they are standing up at the farebox or when they had the "GO Lanes" on the NOVA LFS and New Flyers(5800's), I don't think the GO Lanes existed when the 1000's were delivered.

[jajuan]

I had my first encounter with the "slow" Ventra reader yesterday on #1122 working route #9. I tapped my card, it said "Processing" for about 10 seconds, perhaps a little more before saying "GO". I checked my account and was deducted for the 7-Day Pass($0.00). I know awhile back probably on here there was talk about being charged by the reader if you left via the front doors. That's not always true, you just have to not tap where your cards are by the Ventra reader. The same equally can be said for the Chicago Card/Chicago Card Plus readers. You hit the area where the card is up near that reader and it can read and deduct from there. Nobody ever complained about that when they are standing up at the farebox or when they had the "GO Lanes" on the NOVA LFS and New Flyers(5800's), I don't think the GO Lanes existed when the 1000's were delivered.

Actually I think they did but got phased out shortly after the first 1000s hit the road. Remember the oldest 1000s were on the road starting in 2006.

[owine]

I wish Ventra would send an email after it auto reloads.

[jajuan]

I wish Ventra would send an email after it auto reloads.

It doesn't do that? It does so when you reload a card on your own.

[owine]

It doesn't do that? It does so when you reload a card on your own.

I didn't get one for the auto reload or when I manually purchased a pass last time when auto reload failed.

[MarioM]

I didn't get one for the auto reload or when I manually purchased a pass last time when auto reload failed.

Log in to your Ventra account.

Go to Manage Account and then click on Account Settings.

Under Notification Preferences does it say "Alert Email: yes"?

Also check to make sure your email address is correct.