Ventra - Feedback and Updates

[Busjack]

Yes, but Ventra has overcharged at least 40 percent of the riders. (anyone not using a pass) I doubt riders will ever be repaid for their losses unless they complain to ventra. Is 30 min to an hour on the phone worth a couple bucks? I haven't really seen riders get charged on exit, but I suppose it's possible for a left handed person to get charged because that side of the body is closer to the reader on exit. It doesn't help either that on the NF's the reader is on a grab bar versus closer to the farebox on Novas.

Don't know about your numbers, but

• People with passes have ended up with negative balances due to the false "passback."
• Depends on how one wants satisfaction; either sit on the phone, or wait for the CTA audit or the result of the class action. Frosty says that the phone wait will eventually get under 5 minutes.

[BusHunter]

I googled pass use and according to metroplanning.org pass use on cta is 55 percent. So im basically saying the rest are the transit card users which get double charged by about $10 of use.

[jajuan]

I googled pass use and according to metroplanning.org pass use on cta is 55 percent. So im basically saying the rest are the transit card users which get double

charged by about $10 of use.

That's assuming all riders who use their cards as transit cards instead of passes got hit with the multiple charge problem. And you can't definitively make that claim outside of your own assumption even if a good number of Ventra card holders ran into some type of problem.

One other thing I have noticed though is Mr.CTA mentions to riders to remove their cards from their wallets and tap them on the center of the reader when boarding in the automated announcements.

[Amtrak41]

If this is true:

"But he said uncollected fares, up to 5 percent of Ventra transactions"

and this is true

"Yes, but Ventra has overcharged at least 40 percent of the riders. (anyone not using a pass)"

CTA will be crying all the way to the bank. (40 less 5 = 35), and use only some of the profits to pay off the lawyers.

[Busjack]

If this is true:

"But he said uncollected fares, up to 5 percent of Ventra transactions"

and this is true

"Yes, but Ventra has overcharged at least 40 percent of the riders. (anyone not using a pass)"

CTA will be crying all the way to the bank. (40 less 5 = 35), and use only some of the profits to pay off the lawyers.

A lot of mathematical errors here (although CTA is often guilty of that).

5% of the rides would be 5% of the unlinked trips (most of which would require some sort of Ventra transaction). Since CTA says that it averages about $1.08 a ride, and the ridership report indicates 44 million boardings a month, that's a quantifiable loss of maybe $2,400,000 a month. If Ventra has only a 50% acceptance rate up to now, that would be a $1.2 million a month loss.

You can also compare that to the Budget Report, that farebox and pass revenue was $51 million for the month, which yields a similar loss of $1.275 million, assuming 50% Ventra usage.

Update: One does not know how many of the 5% consist of pass transactions, for which CTA got its money, anyway.

On the other hand, to get to your 40% would take assuming that all stored value riders get taken on every boarding, an assumption BusHunter and you can't make (as jajuan noted).

[BusHunter]

A lot of mathematical errors here (although CTA is often guilty of that).

5% of the rides would be 5% of the unlinked trips (most of which would require some sort of Ventra transaction). Since CTA says that it averages about $1.08 a ride, and the ridership report indicates 44 million boardings a month, that's a quantifiable loss of maybe $2,400,000 a month. If Ventra has only a 50% acceptance rate up to now, that would be a $1.2 million a month loss.

You can also compare that to the Budget Report, that farebox and pass revenue was $51 million for the month, which yields a similar loss of $1.275 million, assuming 50% Ventra usage.

Update: One does not know how many of the 5% consist of pass transactions, for which CTA got its money, anyway.

On the other hand, to get to your 40% would take assuming that all stored value riders get taken on every boarding, an assumption BusHunter and you can't make (as jajuan noted).

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.

[brownliner]

No. As the NABI case shows, the judge can call the parties in for pretrial conferences to try to settle things, once the case is filed, but otherwise there has to be an arbitration agreement.

Even when the contract says you get to sue in a friendly court, most disputes get solved before trial. There are all sorts of avenues of negotiation, formal and informal that will get exhausted first.

Trials are expensive, risky, and slow; generally parties and their lawyers work pretty hard to avoid them. Even when you win, you can lose.

[jajuan]

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.

Well no no one believes that woefully low number from Cubic either. Just because I said I disagree with your number because there's no verifiable evidence of it outside of your assumption that relies on a set of factors that's statistically impossible doesn't mean I'm buying Cubic's line either. Quite frankly the true number is likely in between your assumption and their talking point. And I do think it's fair to say that what we also have here are cases of the media just piling on and not completely investigating the likelihood of certain reported mishaps or just plain not giving the complete story because it bumps their ratings up to have folks tuned in hearing about the latest alleged mishaps. And that just adds to the confusion among the public already caused or perpetuated by CTA botching the mailing of cards meant to replace Chicago Cards and CCP, email mixup and mishaps that ballooned into unneeded crises because of CTA management dragging its feet in acknowledging there were some problems and stumbling blocks to iron out.

[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.