NPT status

How many faregates will there be for each track at 30th Street? I think 2 (or more) on each stairway will be OK, but if there's only one, all it takes is one person who either doesn't know how to use the faregate or who has an inoperable card but won't give up trying (saw that sort of thing a lot when people with New Money tried to use the SEPTA TVMs at Trenton) to make a bunch of people miss their hourly train and get really pissed.

ONE GATE TO RULE THEM ALL!

(Sorry, couldn't help myself there.)

Thinking about the station faregates, I can't help but think about 11th Street El Station at Rush Hour. The bottleneck is insane with people trying to get out of the gated zone to catch their trains at Market East, and people trying to get into the gated zone to get on the train that is at the platform at that moment. There is a similar bottleneck at the 30th Street MFL/TRL station. There are 3 turnstiles for people to get in and out of the gated zone. But, there is an Iron Maiden exit at the far eastern end of the platform that places you outside that bottleneck, but I rarely see it used by anybody but myself and a few other people.

They should just tear down the booths and add more faregates once NPT rolls out

Bettertransitphilly wrote:I really don't understand the concern around the fare gates. Look at any busy subway entrance and see people pass through gates every few seconds. So long as the gates operate quickly the fare gates should be fine.

Just offhand I can't think of any subway station I've seen anywhere that had faregates or turnstiles right at the top or bottom of a staircase or escalator. There has to be room for people to congregate, and there certainly isn't any at 30th St. Upper Level. Any hesitation occurring at a faregate at the bottom of a down escalator or the top of an up escalator is going to cause some stumbling and maybe falling as people leaving the escalator are pushed into those standing ahead of them. If there was congestion before someone stumbled and fell ...

R3 Passenger wrote:ONE GATE TO RULE THEM ALL!

(Sorry, couldn't help myself there.)

Thinking about the station faregates, I can't help but think about 11th Street El Station at Rush Hour. The bottleneck is insane with people trying to get out of the gated zone to catch their trains at Market East, and people trying to get into the gated zone to get on the train that is at the platform at that moment. There is a similar bottleneck at the 30th Street MFL/TRL station. There are 3 turnstiles for people to get in and out of the gated zone. But, there is an Iron Maiden exit at the far eastern end of the platform that places you outside that bottleneck, but I rarely see it used by anybody but myself and a few other people.

30th st is the most poorly laid designed faregate setups I think I've ever seen. there's an enormous amount of real estate on the concourse yet septa has TWO booths and managed to put one of the three gates behind a column. SEPTA seems to design things with the idea people won't use them. the fare gates wouldn't be so bad if there was a legitimate reason for them to exist. concerns about people riding for free between cc stations is the reason that's been given but it's a pretty backwards way to approach it.

Philly.com post on Friday 4/11: SEPTA smart-card official retires, takes job with consultant
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/t ... mUJGDeq.99

From the article, it looks like the project is about 1 year behind. Transit will get them in fall 2014, regional rail in mid to late 2015.

Suburban Station wrote:the fare gates wouldn't be so bad if there was a legitimate reason for them to exist. concerns about people riding for free between cc stations is the reason that's been given but it's a pretty backwards way to approach it.

SEPTA wants to run RRD trains with two person crews at all times. It's basically the same as what Caltrain does with its POP system. The C/R comes through maybe once on a 60 minute trip to check tickets, but since its POP you can get fined at any time for not having one. Instead of going POP SEPTA is using turnstiles because POP would require installing TVM's at all stations...something SEPTA cannot afford.

Jersey_Mike wrote:SEPTA wants to run RRD trains with two person crews at all times. It's basically the same as what Caltrain does with its POP system. The C/R comes through maybe once on a 60 minute trip to check tickets, but since its POP you can get fined at any time for not having one. Instead of going POP SEPTA is using turnstiles because POP would require installing TVM's at all stations...something SEPTA cannot afford.

SEPTA conductors will still be cutting cash fares and checking fares The ONLY reason the CC stations will gated is because of the 5% revenue loss they believe they are seeing because of passengers getting on in center city and either not having their tickets punched or riding for free. The unworkable gating and the tap-in and tap-out have caused the RRD NPT project to be late by a year. The NPT gating model for the railroad came at the insistence of one former SEPTA staffer.

Most of the time when I go from a center city stop to another center city stop, the conductors don't check for tickets

I think that the no free center city to center city will cut down on people using regional rail for that. They'll use the MFL instead. However, for people that need to get to university city, or Cynwyd line riders, there should be no charge if someone exits the faregates and goes into a different one within a certain amount of time, then exits at another center city station.

If there was a way to do this without obstructing people passing through the station, they could combine the faregates and make all of the platforms inside the paid area. However, that would cause too many issues.

There are now (open) fare gates at all entrances to the NHSL platforms at 69th Street. Will there be gates at all NHSL stations?

In preparation for NPT, all buses and trolleys out of 69th Street are now "pay when enter" regardless of direction. Previously, the Victory Division buses and trolleys were "pay when furthest away from 69th Street". The new system is more consistent, but it means you can no longer get out of the elements and into an unoccupied bus or trolley when it arrives at its berth (typically 10 to 15 minutes before departure). They still pull up to the berth ahead of time, and the operators still alight and go into the station until just before departure time, but the vehicles are now kept locked and passengers can't enter until just before departure.

loufah wrote:In preparation for NPT, all buses and trolleys out of 69th Street are now "pay when enter" regardless of direction. Previously, the Victory Division buses and trolleys were "pay when furthest away from 69th Street". The new system is more consistent, but it means you can no longer get out of the elements and into an unoccupied bus or trolley when it arrives at its berth (typically 10 to 15 minutes before departure). They still pull up to the berth ahead of time, and the operators still alight and go into the station until just before departure time, but the vehicles are now kept locked and passengers can't enter until just before departure.

Classic SEPTA.

I'm tired of classic SEPTA.