Using it as a debit card would solve the problem of stored cash. As I have said, if an agency wants you to convert cash into a transit-only fare instrument, it should either offer value or improve upon a service.

TAP doesn’t allow for faster boarding, because it serves the same functions as tokens or paper passes. Both of them also allow for faster boarding.

Also, Metro has studied a way to speed up local lines 10% to 15% — but will not do it, even with TAP. How? Allowing all-doors boardings like on trains.

The problem is not massive fare-beating, interestingly enough. If riders with passes get in the habit of boarding through the back door(s), the driver can check passes after the cash payers boarded.

The problem is physical. Mainly, all but the BRT-ready buses (artics and 45-footers) have the narrow rear door to prevent boardings. All doors have to be wide. Otherwise, there’s no time advantage.

Damien Goodmon also wrote:
It also, provides the capability to return transfers and distance-based fares with the least amount of confusion. In fact, I’m trying to figure out how any distance-based fare system would possibly work without stored-value cards.

The way express bus drivers do it now: Hand out paper tickets and check them at the zone boundary. The fareboxes, when they aren’t out of order, still have the capability to spit out tickets that show the zone fare.

I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t much rather just load up a card with $20 instead of $1.25 sixteen times, or $5 four times. And providing the capability to add money online to the card online is the cherry on top of the sundae.

Stored value could also allow Metro to increase service for near nothing. Fewer people feeding the farebox = faster loading = faster trip times.

Stored value would also save some transit riders money. Many times I have chosen to NOT buy a weekly pass because I didn’t think I would spend $17 on transit for the week, but something ends up happening and I end up spending more than $17.

If I have $20 on my card and tapped 14 times ($1.25 * 14 = $17.50) the card could have the capability of converting me from a one-way fare deduction to a $17 weekly pass deduction.

It also, provides the capability to return transfers and distance-based fares with the least amount of confusion. In fact, I’m trying to figure out how any distance-based fare system would possibly work without stored-value cards.

Go even further than just putting MTA, the Munis and Metrolink under the TAP umbrella and add the LADOT parking meters.

And why stop there? It would not be very difficult to have these cards operate with all the above AND perform like a credit card. Such a card/system, could require a PIN, when buying something at 7-11 and simply require a swipe when paying a transit fare or parking meter. Or maybe a PIN wouldn’t even be required as long as the cards have people’s photo on it.

All it just takes bureaucratic coordination and competence. In fact, I don’t believe any of what I or others suggested is revolutionary. I’m pretty sure either the South Koreans or Japanese perfect universal purchase cards systems back when Clinton was in office? Now such systems are tied to their phones. People pay for a Sierra Mist at 7-11, their transit fare and talk all on the same device. Read an article about back in W’s first term.

If I’m a regular Metro user, I buy a pass. That’s a no brainer. If the pass is a plastic TAP card instead of a paper pass, so what?

But what about all of the part-time transit users? What about the users who take the train sometimes but who need a car for other purposes? For them, stored-value would be much better than cash.

I’d much rather load $20, $30 or $40 onto a TAP card IN ADVANCE than shove dollar bills into a ticket machine at the LAST MOMENT. Or fumble around for “exact change only” on the bus. Right now I can’t load a $20 onto TAP, but the point is, the system is designed to be able to do that and Metro just hasn’t done what is necessary to be able to do that.

I can’t use TAP to ride Metrolink or Torrance Transit or Gardena Transit at the moment, but the system is designed to be able to do that in the future.

Stored value, monthly passes, weekly passes, Metro, Muni lines, Metrolink on ONE CARD. That’s way easier than cash.

http://twitter.com/Metrolink

Having the ability to buy a bus ticket prior to boarding with a either cash or a card is a no-brainer – it makes buying said ticket super easy. This TAP fasco, with the MTA re-inventing magnetic swipe cards, is a prime example of what libertarians find so stupid about government. Is the MTA going to recreate the internet in order to distribute their crappy .pdf maps?

That wouldn’t be the right analogy in the case of TAP.

The fundamental problem is that when Metro bought into TAP, it bought a solution looking for a problem to solve.

TAP doesn’t do anything you can’t do right now with cash or fare media it has already been offering.

Stored-value cars are inferior to cash. After all, why would you want to take your money — good anywhere — and turn it in to a currency good only for public transit and nothing else? Systems that use stored-value cards do so because they have barriers that won’t allow you to pay directly in cash (gates in New York, San Francisco, etc.).

Stored-value cards must be an improvement over what is available now. In New York City, Metrocards are a great improvement over bus fareboxes. Why? For all the greatness of public transit in Gotham, NYMTA never installed fareboxes that accepted dollars, even though the fare has long been above a dollar. (The why: New York vaults its fareboxes with a vacuum that would shred paper money, and switching fare collection systems would have cost more than the Metrocard installation).

In L.A., TAP doesn’t do anything you can’t already do with money, tokens or paper passes.

Metro can eventually eliminate tokens, paper passes and even taking cash if it wanted to. The problem is that TAP performs the same function but doesn’t improve upon them.

Heh.

The FP bakfiets is ready to ride (Box’s camera crew used it for their shoot this past weekend). Stop by when you’ve got a chance and take the thang fer a spin.

(1) Misinterpreting someone’s post;
(2) Presenting a poor counter argument to that misinterpretation.

The main thrust of what I wrote is that the “high costs” of credit card fees don’t look that high to me (compared to the cut that others take from my till), and I’m a small retailer with no leverage on my merchant account processor. The MTA could guarantee tons of transactions, and could do some serious shopping around with a guaranteed amount of card swipes.

Having the ability to buy a bus ticket prior to boarding with a either cash or a card is a no-brainer – it makes buying said ticket super easy. This TAP fasco, with the MTA re-inventing magnetic swipe cards, is a prime example of what libertarians find so stupid about government. Is the MTA going to recreate the internet in order to distribute their crappy .pdf maps? Only this time, you’ll have to log-in at a kiosk at Union Station between the hours of 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday after submitting your passport and spit sample.

Studies show that when businesses accept credit cards, sales go up. I bet it’s especially useful if you sell expensive bikes.

Of course, you could always not take credit cards if they are so bad. I’d be curious to hear how that would affect your sales. Maybe those studies are bullshit.

In any case, if you are one of those small businesses who likes to violate the contracts they sign with major credit card companies and impose minimum purchase requirements and require customers to show ID when paying with a credit card, I certainly wouldn’t patronize your business.

If the credit card company is a dick to you (not you specifically), be a man and stop doing business with them. Small businesses love to get away with stuff like that. I hope you are not one of them.

If you are the MTA, and you can guarantee millions of dollars in business, what credit card company wouldn’t want to process your trasactions?

Frankly, I would appreciate ticket kiosks for the rapid buses, so I wouldn’t have to waster everyone’s time bothering the driver with crap like that. Paying with cash or a card (Debit!) at kiosks eliminates the need for this idiotic pseudo-credit card the MTA is calling TAP.

Following up on Stephen’s comment, the cars are all the same width because they use the same platforms; no car is wider and no car is narrower. The interiors are all basically the same width: only a window pane separates the interior wall from the exterior wall.

http://www.foothilltransit.org/HowTo.aspx

(Send them a SASE and they will mail you one!)

The LAX Flyaway buses have the comfiest seats I’ve experienced in greater LA transit,

Los Angeles World Airports contracts with Coach America, which owns and operates the buses.

It’s a run-of-the-mill motorcoach, and amenities are typical for those kinds of vehicles. You’ll find the same thing riding Greyhound.

Santa Clarita and AVTA also use them for their commuter services.

Don’t expect to get these amenities on local transit buses, though. Motorcoaches spend most of the day idle, giving attendants plenty of time to clean them. These buses couldn’t withstand the punishment of urban traffic.

In L.A., seats on urban buses used to be vinyl and cushioned up until the mid-1980s. Then the hard plastic with the thin felt covers came along and became the standard used today.

I am sure that this capability will be available at some point within the next year. TAP is still being gradually rolled out. I’m annoyed that it is not available right now, but, hey, things are improving. The TAP stored value option didn’t exist at all a year ago.

Also I just remembered–I lived in Korea in 2002-2003 and I was out in the boonies in the southwest. The buses there used almost the exact same smart cards that TAP uses, and it worked entirely with stored values. It was extremely simple and convenient. I’m pretty sure that if rural South Korea can do it, LA can.

Why can’t we have swipe machines on buses and at train terminals?

A couple of good reasons.

For one, the merchant fees are expensive. As you’ve said, the processor stands to gain, but would you want to be the one to hike everyone’s fare or cut service because the processing fee is too high to Metro?

Otherwise, you’d introduce a spread of $2 credit fare for $1.25 cash fare.

Second, it slows down boarding. The transaction would take at least 3 to 4 times longer than cash payments on buses.

Third, it encourages theft. Credit card thieves would use snatched cards at a gas pump to make sure the cards weren’t canceled. Now that most gas stations now require a PIN or a live attendant to process transactions, thieves would now use transit fareboxes for the same purpose.

I was in Japan in the 90s and they had magnetic stripe cards that you’d put money on and they just worked. This isn’t terribly difficult technology, and yes it really needs to be cross-agency before anyone can start taking it seriously.