HSR Ticket Prices

[omro]

OK, someone explain to me why they don't do an annual pass for the HSR that's significantly cheaper than the month passes, which aren't that cost effective either.

Also, someone explain why I went into a ton of convenience stores today, mostly King St or Barton St and was quoted between $2 and $1.90 for bus tickets. The only place that I went to, today, that sold them at the right price was the convenience store on King William next to Reardons. They also sell their cans of soft drink for under a dollar, so I like them

Surely an annual pass should exist. Even the woman selling bus passes at the Hunter St Station was embarrassed when I was asking as to why they didn't exist.

And surely the HSR should crackdown on these crappy vendors who hike their prices up for their own gain. Where does one complain when they come across a place that sells for too much?

[mic67]

Humm....awaaaa.....well....

Welcome to Hamilton...intelligence is optional......

Ya....as of Aug 22/09 5 hsr tickets ought to cost $9.25 for 5 of them. That is the suppose to be the official price. But that is from so called licensed retailers. Those that sell tickets for more do so, usually because they are not licensed to sell them and thus is the only way for them to make a profit for selling them.

The HSR rocks - the stupidity is at the management level that is on par with the TTC - toronto transit. The HSR drivers are their own supervisors. The HRS management could not manage a pay toilet even if they were given the correct change.

Thankfully the HRS drivers have the ability to think for themselfs.

And you guys talk about an LTR for Hamilton...LOL......ya....right. They can't organize a HAM SANDWICH.

No 24 HR service.

Did I say "Welcome to Hamilton"?

Omro go to TO, I WANT your opinion......you will love it.

Mic67

[mic67]

Oh ya ....complain about those that sell HRS tickets for more than the official price......Hummm..... that would be the guy who collects the rubbish...... as he would care as much as anyone one else. BTW did I say " WElcome to Hamilton"???

Mic67

[emge]

Isn't there some sort of bylaw that you can't jack up the prices on HSR tickets? I'm not surprised, though -- people will prey on whoever they can, even for a few cents.

Service comes down to demand, dollars and cents. As we well-know, there isn't a great deal of demand for transit, because we're a very car-dependent city where less people use transit on a regular basis. You simply don't have the same numbers of professionals or others who use transit each month demanding a higher level of service or amenities like annual passes like there are in Toronto or other cities.

So it isn't cost-effective for the HSR to offer a program like the TTC does, where one gets a monthly discount by pre-paying and has a pass mailed to their house each month. It's about volume and numbers.

They could do better - but what's their incentive to? Only if enough people who do use transit speak up - and transit use increases as well - and slowly changes the status quo of what transit is in this city.

[mic67]

It has little to do with those that "'speak up" ===they could care less.

Lets sit around and prove to the general public how incompentent we are, and if they dont like it well, why ought we care. This has been proved over and over again. THEY DO NOT EVEN TAKE THE HSR, GIVE NAMES OF THOSE THAT DO. ZERO, NONE/.... FO.........

Really the HRS management is incompetent, period. That is the issue, period.

Like what was said they can NOT organize a HAM
sandwich.....wtf ....do yo expect?

Mic67

[sofasurfer]

Originally Posted by omro

OK, someone explain to me why they don't do an annual pass for the HSR that's significantly cheaper than the month passes, which aren't that cost effective either.

Retarded, isn't it... there's no serious incentive to get a regular pass. We were looking in to this when we relocated here (jeez, almost a year ago - where'd that go?) and realised it wasn't worth it in our situation.

Originally Posted by omro

Also, someone explain why I went into a ton of convenience stores today, mostly King St or Barton St and was quoted between $2 and $1.90 for bus tickets

Like the sh1tty little stores in the UK that sell cigarettes individually, I guess... and similarly hard to regulate.

Isn't there supposed to be an Oyster-card-type thing coming to the GTA... Presto, I think it's called? i.e. a pre-paid card system that does away with tickets. IIRC, Presto is supposed to work on all the main transit systems on the GTA. Which would be very cool... you could just load up, and not faff about with separate tickets for HSR, GO train, TTC... that'd solve the ticket scalping problem, too, no?

[markbarbera]

According to the Presto website, it is coming to the HSR Fall 2010.

Question to Oyster users: Would a card like Oyster (and presumably Presto) be used for monthly passes as well - i.e. can you pay for unlimited travel for the month/year using an Oyster Card, or is it strictly a per-use fare card?

[coalminecanary]

This brins me back to my old argument - the bus should just cost a loonie, or even a toonie. no tickets, no BS. cut out all of the middle men and red tape of printing tickets, distributing them, collecting cash for them, fighting counterfeit - just make it cost a simple price for everyone. If the bus was a dollar I bet we'd see a 50% ridership increase overnight, and we'd stop sending empty buses up and down the escarpment all day.

[markbarbera]

The cost of the fare has very little to do with how full the buses are going up the hill. It's the lack of proper service that's keeping their ridership down.

Just look at the bus service up the hill during peak periods when service is at its best (or least worst). The buses are quite full then. I have had to stand on several occasions when going up in the late afternoon.

Absolutely noone will ride the bus if you are only sending it along its route once an hour on a Sunday (or every 30 minutes off-peak weekdays and Saturdays).

[sofasurfer]

Originally Posted by markbarbera

Question to Oyster users: Would a card like Oyster (and presumably Presto) be used for monthly passes as well - i.e. can you pay for unlimited travel for the month/year using an Oyster Card, or is it strictly a per-use fare card?

You could have weekly, monthly (and I think annual) travelcards set up on your oystercard -although there was a small implementation glitch, in that some suburban train station readers couldn't handle the single-trip and one-day travelcard transactions at first - so only people with weekly passes or above could use Oyster.

The other really neat thing with Oyster is that as you make trips during the day, it maxes out your daily payment in line with the appropriate travelcard that you could have bought for your trip.

In London, you can get different zone travelcards, depending on where you need to travel - previously, if you only bought, say, a zone 1-2 and then had to travel to zone 4 - or, say, a zone 2-6 and then go in to central London which is Zone 1 - you'd be SOL. Not any more!

I think they were also looking towards rolling out the card beyond public transport for micropayments and suchlike. Omro might know more than me, as he left London after I did. I think one bank (Barclays?) was trialling a combined debit card and Oystercard, too.

But if they implemented Presto so that I could just use one card for HSR/GO/TTC/etc, it could make it so much easier to modify pricing strategies and provide greater incentives to increase public transport usage... and potentially integrate with other payment systems.

[sofasurfer]

Originally Posted by coalminecanary

no tickets, no BS. cut out all of the middle men and red tape of printing tickets, distributing them, collecting cash for them, fighting counterfeit

Which is what a Presto/Oyster-type solution can offer. As proven in London and elsewhere.

As for the simpler pricing - as I just posted, it'd be a lot easier to trial/implement better pricing structures that could increase usage and demand. IMO, this offers a lot more flexibility all round than an over-simplistic $1/2 pricing policy that would stymie revenue potential... maybe a better incentive would be to offer $x/day maximum cost for a day's travel on HSR?

[markbarbera]

Originally Posted by sofasurfer

You could have weekly, monthly (and I think annual) travelcards set up on your oystercard -although there was a small implementation glitch, in that some suburban train station readers couldn't handle the single-trip and one-day travelcard transactions at first - so only people with weekly passes or above could use Oyster.

The other really neat thing with Oyster is that as you make trips during the day, it maxes out your daily payment in line with the appropriate travelcard that you could have bought for your trip.

In London, you can get different zone travelcards, depending on where you need to travel - previously, if you only bought, say, a zone 1-2 and then had to travel to zone 4 - or, say, a zone 2-6 and then go in to central London which is Zone 1 - you'd be SOL. Not any more!

I think they were also looking towards rolling out the card beyond public transport for micropayments and suchlike. Omro might know more than me, as he left London after I did. I think one bank (Barclays?) was trialling a combined debit card and Oystercard, too.

But if they implemented Presto so that I could just use one card for HSR/GO/TTC/etc, it could make it so much easier to modify pricing strategies and provide greater incentives to increase public transport usage... and potentially integrate with other payment systems.

Thanks for the info. I would love to have one card to manage my HSR/GO/TTC monthly passes.

I really liked the fare system in Paris as well. I could not enter or exit a station without passing my ticket through a reader. I would like to see similar turnstiles here. Liked the 'whoosh' sound as the turnstile doors swung open and closed...