MyTix Mobile Ticketing

I take NJ Transit trains to commute into New York City every day. If you follow me on Twitter, you've likely read my grumblings about how insane it is for conductors to make their way through cars — filled with people standing shoulder to shoulder — taking and punching holes in paper tickets.

It's 2013, NJ Transit. This system is both antiquated and a waste of natural resources. A huge number of your passengers use a smartphone to check email, read news or play games. It's time to get on board.

http://mashable.com/2013/02/15/nj-trans" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... e-tickets/

it looks like this person is angry that those obsolete paper ticket things are still around. I think its funny that the "antiquated" ticket form the author rails against, the print-out pink ticket, only started to be sold at some stations last year or so when they put TVMs on all the lines.

I've used mobile ticketing on both Amtrak and the MBTA Commuter Rail, and I've been very happy with the utilization of both systems. All of my uses have been flawless, and have saved me time over various methods of using paper tickets.

The MBTA m-Ticket app in particular is very easy to use, as you just purchase your ticket ahead of time (unactivated tickets are valid for 90 days, the same as paper CharlieTickets), and activate it when you board the train. The activated ticket then flashes different colors and bounces the time back and forth until it expires an hour and a half later. The conductor/crew member can then just look at the screen as they walk by, with no ticket-punching or scanning necessary. When buying the ticket, you are given the option to buy a round trip, 10 ride, or monthly pass, or an unlimited number of one way tickets (when you buy the round trip, it just shows up as two one ways, and I would assume the 10 ride works the same way).

I guess they never read about the fact that NJT paper schedules and tickets are printed on 100% recycled paper using soy ink.

Keep in mind that NJT isn't really just a commuter operation anymore. There is SIGNIFICANT off peak ridership, and non-regular riders which take the train every day, all times of the day and night. Its easier to use paper tickets, especially for infrequent riders. Then the question should be asked, is it cost effective or efficient to have two types of tickets? Paper and electronic? How much money would actually be saved, in particular in the revenue department and back office stuff....

It works, and while there might be something that could work electronically in the not to distant future, I think the paper tickets in some form, and the people to collect them, are going to be around for some time.

Jtgshu wrote:Keep in mind that NJT isn't really just a commuter operation anymore. There is SIGNIFICANT off peak ridership, and non-regular riders which take the train every day, all times of the day and night. Its easier to use paper tickets, especially for infrequent riders. Then the question should be asked, is it cost effective or efficient to have two types of tickets? Paper and electronic? How much money would actually be saved, in particular in the revenue department and back office stuff....

It works, and while there might be something that could work electronically in the not to distant future, I think the paper tickets in some form, and the people to collect them, are going to be around for some time.

Interestingly enough, on the MBTA, the e-ticketing actually works best for the more infrequent riders (basically anyone without a monthly pass). At least for now, they are still working on integrating the mobile ticketing with the monthly subway and bus passes. With the paper monthly passes, you would simply insert the pass (as it was printed on the same CharlieTickets that are used for stored value subway/bus passes) into the faregate/farebox when you boarded the subway or bus. With the mobile ticketing, they have yet to connect the app with a CharlieCard that can automatically load their MonthlyLink subway/bus pass. Thus, at least for now, the m-Ticket app is mostly used by people who don't commute reguarly. Once the CR and subway/bus monthlies can be connected, the mobile ticketing will become much more popular, and paper tickets & cash sales will drop dramatically.

There was an article in the Times today http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/nyreg ... wanted=all
about the NYMTA's bumbling, expensive and so far fruitless attempt to produce a fancier electronic system to replace metrocards....which it is said can't be maintained past 2019 and which themselves represented a many-hundred-million expense to replace tokens and paper transfers. The article says that right now the subway pays 15% of its fare receipts to collect the fares.

Don't forget, any system that uses smartphones, swipeless credit cards, etc also has to deal with customers who have no electronic gizmos or credit cards.
I have often thought that the managers of transit systems like fancy fare systems so they can brag about them at meetings of transit officials.

Don't get me wrong. I love my iphone 5. It is a neat gizmo. If NJT let me buy tickets with it, I undoubtedly would. But I certainly can't see my smartphone as a necessity or a money-saver. I bet paper tickets will cost NJT less. And if flashing a smartphone gets accepted as proof of payment, how long till some hacker makes an app that fakes the screenshot of the ticket?

JoeG wrote:And if flashing a smartphone gets accepted as proof of payment, how long till some hacker makes an app that fakes the screenshot of the ticket?

It would be impossible to pass a screenshot off as an actual ticket. With the Amtrak and Metro-North tickets, they have to be scanned, and I doubt the fake tickets would be read as valid. With the MBTA m-Ticket, which requires no scanning, a screenshot definitely wouldn't work, as the activated tickets move and change so that a fake ticket could immediately be spotted.

Here's a screenshot of an actual m-Ticket that I used last weekend.



The tri-colored bar at the top flashes the colors and the time bounces left and right across the bar. The colors of the bar. as well as the circled zone number, change over time (they have been different each time I used it, and are even different from when you activate it to an hour later). I'm not sure exactly how the colors are determined (and that's exactly the point of them varying), but I'm sure there is some meaning to it.

Also, if you scroll down on the ticket (there's more lines that don't all fit on the screen at once), it shows the time the ticket was activated, as well as the time it expires.

It would be nearly impossible to replicate these e-tickets. Paper tickets would be easier to fabricate than mobile tickets.

I was basing my comment about screenshots on my only experience so far with e tickets, which is ny waterway. Theirs are nothing so elaborate. But if they make elaborate variable screenshots, its true they couldn't be faked. But my other objections still hold. Certainly any e ticket system will only increase the cost of ticket collection at NJT.

JoeG wrote:There was an article in the Times today http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/nyreg ... wanted=all
about the NYMTA's bumbling, expensive and so far fruitless attempt to produce a fancier electronic system to replace metrocards....which it is said can't be maintained past 2019 and which themselves represented a many-hundred-million expense to replace tokens and paper transfers. The article says that right now the subway pays 15% of its fare receipts to collect the fares.

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/last-pu ... -the-clink

Even SEPTA is figuring it out with the few scraps Harrisburg is throwing them. I don't think the MTA is a good example of how to do ANYTHING financially... when you have a ridiculous subsidy, you don't learn to do things efficiently.

JoeG wrote:Certainly any e ticket system will only increase the cost of ticket collection at NJT.

Why you think it'll certainly increase the cost?

Like many topics here on RR.net At least we can all rest easy knowing we dont have it as bad as Philadelphia. Who needs a time machine, just go to Philadelphia for the most antiquated payment systems on the NEC.

The Philly subway system that still only accepts tokens. O yea, and you can only buy the tokens with cash. O yea, and you can only use exact change to buy them at the machines. O yea, and you need to find a teller to buy tokens without exact change(not every station is staffed).

And Septa Regional Rail, outside of the major stations, a ticket machine or a teller is highly highly unlikely, so forget about using the plastic.

You may see e-Tickets on NJT in the next ten years. In Philadelphia, you'll be lucky to see a metro card type operation before the ice Caps melt.

HT and RB: Interesting article and thoughts about SEPTA fares...(off NJT topic but...)

The writer of the NextCity article did not mention SEPTA's Weekly and Monthly Passes at all
which sort of surprises me knowing that the vast majority of SEPTA's riders use them and just
a somewhat small percentage of riders use tokens or cash...

Also not mentioned was the almost-unlimited use Independence Pass or the eight ride
Convenience Pass...From the basis of that information one would think that only tokens
are accepted for CTD fare as was the case in NYC before the Metrocard was introduced
and phased in during the 90s...

Examples-see: www.shop.septa.org and look for "Discount Fares"...

I also thought the mention in the NC article that PATCO is creating its own smart card
is interesting because PATCO already has their FREEDOM system up and running...

Could NJT and SEPTA honor the Freedom card and maybe even adopt it as their own
to perhaps save major money on fare collection costs?

E-tickets via smart phone could make it easy for some NJT and SEPTA riders but there
is a core group of riders that will not use them under any circumstances...
A discount incentive could change that thought...

MACTRAXX

It's just that any of these new fare collection systems has significant and ongoing hardware and software costs. If you have software, you need to have a staff of programmers. NYC says it spends $10 million making new Metrocards every year. Even if they charge for new cards, they have the hardware and software costs. Even though tokens and paper transfers seem old-fashioned, you could have machines that dispense tokens and take credit cards. You could have discounts by dispensing extra tokens. I'd rather these transit agencies spend their limited funds on providing train service rather than on extra fare collection hardware and software.

JoeG wrote:It's just that any of these new fare collection systems has significant and ongoing hardware and software costs. If you have software, you need to have a staff of programmers. NYC says it spends $10 million making new Metrocards every year. Even if they charge for new cards, they have the hardware and software costs. Even though tokens and paper transfers seem old-fashioned, you could have machines that dispense tokens and take credit cards. You could have discounts by dispensing extra tokens. I'd rather these transit agencies spend their limited funds on providing train service rather than on extra fare collection hardware and software.

Agreed. The punches are paid for and can be used for decades. In addition to the software and hardware, you'll need to equip the on board personnel with equipment to collect the data. For an operation the size of NJT, I'm sure that would cost a lot more than paper.

Speaking of which, I'd venture to say there are a lot of riders that still don't use smartphones. You'd still have to provide for those passengers somehow.

ThirdRail7 wrote:

JoeG wrote:It's just that any of these new fare collection systems has significant and ongoing hardware and software costs. If you have software, you need to have a staff of programmers. NYC says it spends $10 million making new Metrocards every year. Even if they charge for new cards, they have the hardware and software costs. Even though tokens and paper transfers seem old-fashioned, you could have machines that dispense tokens and take credit cards. You could have discounts by dispensing extra tokens. I'd rather these transit agencies spend their limited funds on providing train service rather than on extra fare collection hardware and software.

Agreed. The punches are paid for and can be used for decades. In addition to the software and hardware, you'll need to equip the on board personnel with equipment to collect the data. For an operation the size of NJT, I'm sure that would cost a lot more than paper.

Speaking of which, I'd venture to say there are a lot of riders that still don't use smartphones. You'd still have to provide for those passengers somehow.

Exactly the point I was about to make.