Ventra - Feedback and Updates

[jajuan]

What's to contest? He got on a bus. He got charged for the bus ride (well, he would have if we were pay per ride). Does it matter to anyone, except maybe a divorce lawyer, which bus it really was? Chicago card never reported what bus you were on, just 'cta bus' or 'pace bus'. 'L' stops it normally got right.

So the ventra reader doesn't know what the clever device does. That's interesting, but not terribly surprising. (or it knows, but can't deal with interlines. Are there any 9/49 interlines?)

I had a suspicion before that it might be possible, as there were times I noticed the same buses from 74th that would be on the 49 at night during owl service would be on the 9 the very next morning in about the same order.

[Busjack]

In the foul up du jour, federal government employees discover that Ventra will accept their employee ID cards, even though there isn't a bank account associated with it. The article also says that the employees could get in trouble if they abuse their credentials.

The more confusing part of the article is while it explains that the system has to go to the server to verify balances and make deductions, somehow some of the transaction is locally processed on the reader.

[AppleBee]

I am sure that Cubic would never do this, but it crosses my mind that if
someone told you that you would start getting half a billion dollars in
payments if you got your processing time down to under 2.5 seconds, you
might think of just setting a timer that automatically flashes the "go"
light at 2.4 seconds whether you are done processing or not. It might
cost you a few thousand dollars in reimbursements, but what's that
compared to half a billion? And customers might get confused by
negative balances, but you could spin that as a customer service
feature. And after the payments start, you might adjust your system to
operate more strictly. But, again to be clear, this is a fantasy I just
thought up. It is not something that anyone is doing or anyone would
really do.

[Busjack]

I am sure that Cubic would never do this, but it crosses my mind that if

someone told you that you would start getting half a billion dollars in

payments if you got your processing time down to under 2.5 seconds, you

might think of just setting a timer that automatically flashes the "go"

light at 2.4 seconds whether you are done processing or not. It might

cost you a few thousand dollars in reimbursements, but what's that

compared to half a billion? ...

The half billion is in monthly installments over 10 or 12 years. So, how many false green lights are there going to be over 10 or 12 years? Remember the article about that one outage at 60 rail stations resulted in an estimated 15,000 free rides.

The real question is whether CTA can audit the missed fares. One story said something about using cameras, but it should be easier just to use the gps counters in the bus door wells and any counter in the turnstiles.

The real question I posed before was the part about locally processed transactions later being flagged.Like I said, the article didn't say how that worked, and whether that is, in effect, what you said.

[AppleBee]

But, according to Jon Hilkevitch, once the CTA declares that the goals are met "the transit system is obligated to begin paying Cubic at least $2.5 million a month, a bottom line figure that could be hard to reduce regardless of future problems."

A fictional hypothetical company would just need to keep up the green lights until the CTA declares the goals met and the money would then start rolling in for 10 to 12 years. They wouldn't have to keep the green lights on for 10 to 12 years.

[sw4400]

Rather than starting a new topic with a poll, I want to get the forums' opinion of the Ventra Card system... my house is pretty much divided...

• Get rid of Ventra and go back to Magnetic Stripe Cards/Chicago Cards? 0 Votes
• Give Ventra a chance to be ironed out. The bugs will be fixed eventually: 1 Vote
• Look for a new vendor to create a tap and go system to work with: 0 Votes

In all honesty, we're going to a tap and go system one way or the other. I remember when Chicago Card and Chicago Card Plus came out, there were lots of problems with them. The CTA got them ironed out and it worked flawlessly. I think the days of Magnetic Stripe Cards is done. Ventra does have it's kinks, but like Chicago Card and Chicago Card Plus in it's infancy, it'll all iron out in due time.

[Busjack]

Rather than starting a new topic with a poll, I want to get the forums' opinion of the Ventra Card system... my house is pretty much divided...

• Get rid of Ventra and go back to Magnetic Stripe Cards/Chicago Cards? 0 Votes
• Give Ventra a chance to be ironed out. The bugs will be fixed eventually: 1 Vote
• Look for a new vendor to create a tap and go system to work with: 0 Votes

In all honesty, we're going to a tap and go system one way or the other. I remember when Chicago Card and Chicago Card Plus came out, there were lots of problems with them. The CTA got them ironed out and it worked flawlessly. I think the days of Magnetic Stripe Cards is done. Ventra does have it's kinks, but like Chicago Card and Chicago Card Plus in it's infancy, it'll all iron out in due time.

I don't think it is going back to the old media, so the choice (as I indicated before) is either Cubic fixes it, or CTA tells Cubic to get its equipment out of here. Not much different than Emanuel dumping the red light camera company, although his motivations were different.

But your poll doesn't tale into account all the consumer fraud associated with Ventra, both on Cubic's and CTA's account. Cubic's might have been accidental, CTA's was not.

[brownliner]

 

In the foul up du jour, federal government employees discover that Ventra will accept their employee ID cards, even though there isn't a bank account associated with it. The article also says that the employees could get in trouble if they abuse their credentials.

The more confusing part of the article is while it explains that the system has to go to the server to verify balances and make deductions, somehow some of the transaction is locally processed on the reader.

 

There is a provision in mastercard's RFID payment system (I'm too lazy to dig my ventra card out to figure out what the heck they call it.) to allow for offline transactions. In an offline transaction, there's no round trip between the reader and the backend network. It's all done locally, and should take less than second. The chip on the card has a set of parameters that specify when it's allowed to do offline transactions. The card issuer gets to set them, and can do different things based on the account the card is associated with.

It's possible to set whether the card can do offline at all, the maximum number of consecutive offline transactions before an online transaction is forced, the maximum spend per offline transaction, and the maximum spend (total, across transactions) before an on line transaction is forced. The reader uses that, and its local information (it can have a 'hotlist' of known bad cards, for instance) to decide whether to approve, decline, or force online for approval/denial. If an online transaction is forced, you have to wait for that, and the speed of that depends on lots of things, including the speed of the data link.

It's pretty clear that Ventra is designed with expectation of doing most transactions offline. Fixed readers, like at train stations might do online, to reset the counter so more bus transactions can be online.

It's not impossible Cubic is playing games with that behavior right now. It's not impossible they fixed a bug, that was causing offline eligible transactions to be done online.

[Busjack]

   

There is a provision in mastercard's RFID payment system (I'm too lazy to dig my ventra card out to figure out what the heck they call it.) to allow for offline transactions. In an offline transaction, there's no round trip between the reader and the backend network. It's all done locally, and should take less than second. The chip on the card has a set of parameters that specify when it's allowed to do offline transactions. The card issuer gets to set them, and can do different things based on the account the card is associated with.

...

I can sort of see that if it is a direct charge to a bank card, and Cubic will find out sooner or later if the $5 hold against the card took.

However, if it is a transit account transaction, I don't see how it can verify just on a chip code whether the rider has a pass or transit value, although maybe that's where all the negative balances originate.

[Busjack]

It never fails. The foul up du jour, according to the Sun-Times, is that someone stuck a $10 bill into a Ventra machine 4 times before it would accept it, but then it gave him $40 in transit credit.

I sure wish that would happen to me when I stick a $1 bill into the snack machine.

Also, there is the complaint that they aren't making it too easy for seniors to transfer remaining value from the senior mag stripe card to the Ventra one.

Anyone want to take bets on Wednesday night's report?

[BusHunter]

The half billion is in monthly installments over 10 or 12 years. So, how many false green lights are there going to be over 10 or 12 years? Remember the article about that one outage at 60 rail stations resulted in an estimated 15,000 free rides. The real question is whether CTA can audit the missed fares. One story said something about using cameras, but it should be easier just to use the gps counters in the bus door wells and any counter in the turnstiles. The real question I posed before was the part about locally processed transactions later being flagged.Like I said, the article didn't say how that worked, and whether that is, in effect, what you said.

They are losing alot of fares. Twice tonight I was waived through due to a slow reader. If operators went after every fare, they would be constsntly 30 minutes late. The card is really fallable in the high traffic rush hour.

[brownliner]

 

I can sort of see that if it is a direct charge to a bank card, and Cubic will find out sooner or later if the $5 hold against the card took.

However, if it is a transit account transaction, I don't see how it can verify just on a chip code whether the rider has a pass or transit value, although maybe that's where all the negative balances originate.

 

Well, it's possible to update data on the card. So, it's entirely possible that their updating the card to know approximately what its balance is, or when the pass that's loaded expires. You put $10 on the card, and then go ride a bus. The card knows it's spent two bucks, ride another, card knows it's spent $4. When it gets to (or maybe near) the amount it knew about, it insists on an online transaction, which gets new data on to the card. If online isn't available (remember, buses with radio modems), you might approve the transaction anyway (whether autopay is enabled or not could be a factor on that, so could lots of other things), which is how you'd end up with a negative balance. If online is available, use that, update the issuer data on the card, and approve/decline based on the balance/availability of a pass.

I don't know the details of the cards Ventra is using, so I don't know they can do this. But it's technically possible, given what's possible with mastercard's technology. and it's not an unreasonable way of doing it, and would certainly be an approach I'd investigate if I had to build a system for this.

[Amtrak41]

What they lose goes in the next fare increase. Easier to shake down passengers than a pay-to-play contractor in Chicago.

[Busjack]

....

I don't know the details of the cards Ventra is using, so I don't know they can do this. But it's technically possible, given what's possible with mastercard's technology. and it's not an unreasonable way of doing it, and would certainly be an approach I'd investigate if I had to build a system for this.

My impression is that the cards basically only have an id associated with some account. I really doubt that the vending machines or readers can put information on the card, given such things as that the accounts can be reloaded on line, and Ventra accepts other RFID media--bank cards intentionally and government ID unintentionally. I don't think Chase wants someone else to put garbage on its chip. Apparently, though, they have rolling security codes to limit counterfeiting, so some rewritable data is there.

[jajuan]

I don't think it is going back to the old media, so the choice (as I indicated before) is either Cubic fixes it, or CTA tells Cubic to get its equipment out of here. Not much different than Emanuel dumping the red light camera company, although his motivations were different.

But your poll doesn't tale into account all the consumer fraud associated with Ventra, both on Cubic's and CTA's account. Cubic's might have been accidental, CTA's was not.

I wouldn't exactly say Cubic is totally clear of all fraud though, given what Kevin reminded us about them making the decision to discontinue all the equipment that reads CTA's old electronic fare media and looping CTA into this system whose technology, that we've recently learned, has not been as devoid of malfunctions as Cubic manipulated the history to be. And despite the double speak we've all grown accustomed to from CTA management and their lack of upfront communication giving the impression, it cannot be definitively said part of CTA's intent with switching over to this system was fraud.

[owine]

I wouldn't exactly say Cubic is totally clear of all fraud though, given what Kevin reminded us about them making the decision to discontinue all the equipment that reads CTA's old electronic fare media and looping CTA into this system whose technology, that we've recently learned, has not been as devoid of malfunctions as Cubic manipulated the history to be. And despite the double speak we've all grown accustomed to from CTA management and their lack of upfront communication giving the impression, it cannot be definitively said part of CTA's intent with switching over to this system was fraud.

Cubic didn't discontinue the fare media, the chips have not been made for a long time and CTA bought all remaining chips from my understanding. The chips in CC/CCP cards were also used in Game Boys and production ceased when they stopped making those. My assumption is that the CTA was running out of chips for the cards and that (as well as the State mandate) contributed to the decision to move to a new system.

[jajuan]

They are losing alot of fares. Twice tonight I was waived through due to a slow reader. If operators went after every fare, they would be constsntly 30 minutes late. The card is really fallable in the high traffic rush hour.

North Park operators don't seem to do as many pass throughs. The 22 Clark for example is one route I always seem to encounter slow readers and a number of the operators actually expect you to wait before the reader switches from 'Processing...please wait' to 'Go' or 'Stop'. I've only seen them wave riders through if they made at least three attempts at tapping their cards and still not get a 'Go' read. The only routes I've seen or experienced operators wave Ventra riders through without making an attempt at tapping their cards have been the peak direction rush hour expresses at the start of the route if the Clever Device unit was slow in kicking in and pulling up that bus's destination info for the destination sign and the Ventra reader (remember Ventra readers will show 'Not in use' if the bus doesn't have an in service destination sign up or the Clever Device otherwise showing the bus is in service).

[jajuan]

Cubic didn't discontinue the fare media, the chips have not been made for a long time and CTA bought all remaining chips from my understanding. The chips in CC/CCP cards were also used in Game Boys and production ceased when they stopped making those. My assumption is that the CTA was running out of chips for the cards and that (as well as the State mandate) contributed to the decision to move to a new system.

Oops my mistake, yes the chips not the cards. I didn't bring up the state mandate because of the impression from Chicago Card and CCP users that the mandate could be fulfilled by expanding available passes on CCP from just the monthly CTA/Pace pass to the other passes sold by both agencies. But since I'm not a computer engineer I'm not sure how feasible that actually is.

[Busjack]

I wouldn't exactly say Cubic is totally clear of all fraud though, given what Kevin reminded us about them making the decision to discontinue all the equipment that reads CTA's old electronic fare media and looping CTA into this system whose technology, that we've recently learned, has not been as devoid of malfunctions as Cubic manipulated the history to be. And despite the double speak we've all grown accustomed to from CTA management and their lack of upfront communication giving the impression, it cannot be definitively said part of CTA's intent with switching over to this system was fraud.

• Any fraud by Cubic on the CTA wouldn't be consumer fraud, while the double charging and the like would be.
• Whatever intent CTA had in converting the system, its implementation of it certainly constituted consumer fraud, such as not publishing for 2 or 3 weeks that bank cards would be charged cash fares. But you didn't understand the definition of consumer fraud and deceptive practices then.

[Busjack]

...as well as the State mandate) contributed to the decision to move to a new system.

... I didn't bring up the state mandate because ...

The state mandate is a false fig leaf.

As I pointed out on the CTA Tattler, in response to Kevin O'Neil republishing that, the Rodriguez administration announced the project and first stage RFP in August 2009, the legislation wasn't effective until 7/7/2011. The only reasonable inference behind the purpose of that Public Act was to stick it to Metra, and one can note from the Act itself, certain other elements (such as a transfer policy) that were not implemented by deadlines set by the legislature.

[jajuan]

• Any fraud by Cubic on the CTA wouldn't be consumer fraud, while the double charging and the like would be.
• Whatever intent CTA had in converting the system, its implementation of it certainly constituted consumer fraud, such as not publishing for 2 or 3 weeks that bank cards would be charged cash fares. But you didn't understand the definition of consumer fraud and deceptive practices then.

Number one I knew you were getting at consumer fraud then and now, I just happened to make a broader point on fraud in general to make the point that Cubic isn't completely clean in the effects this rollout has had on riders. Two don't try to insult my intelligence because I don't take your tact of finding things to feed your already biased view to the point of being vendetta against the service boards. I understand the definition of both terms quite well sir. My interpreting a set of facts differently or having a different opinion from YOU does not mean I have a lack of understanding of anything. Last time I checked I don't have to agree with you on every point of minutia to prove any form of understanding. So be careful with how loosely you throw out that statement of someone not understanding any definition.

[brownliner]

 

My impression is that the cards basically only have an id associated with some account. I really doubt that the vending machines or readers can put information on the card, given such things as that the accounts can be reloaded on line, and Ventra accepts other RFID media--bank cards intentionally and government ID unintentionally. I don't think Chase wants someone else to put garbage on its chip. Apparently, though, they have rolling security codes to limit counterfeiting, so some rewritable data is there.

Ventra does the processing of fare cards the same way, using the same protocol as it does for processing bank cards. One of the things that the protocol allows is for the issuer of the card to update the issuer information section of the chip on the card. Metabank can update their cards, but not those issued by someone else. Balance and limit information (and changing pins) are one of the important usage for this feature.

The government ID thing is interesting. I don't know if those cards have the same sort of system as contactless bankcards, or if ventra has provision for tracking some sort of other ID system.

[Amtrak41]

Lots of companies have RFID ID cards. This federal card was one we KNOW about. Perhaps others are keeping it a guarded secret.

[Busjack]

Lots of companies have RFID ID cards. This federal card was one we KNOW about. Perhaps others are keeping it a guarded secret.

For about 20 years, employees of some companies have needed some sort of electronic ID to get past the lobby door or parking lot gate. So, if those chips are no longer being made, the companies have to change to something else, although I know some that use bar code readers.

BTW, the Tribune failed today, in that it reran a complaint, instead of coming up with a new one.

[BusHunter]

I'll give you one. When the drivers do a relief, the ventra can go offline for a space of up to 8 blocks. More lost revenue.....