Presto Comes to YRT
Saturday, August 13th, 2011August 13 update: There will be additional events to be held in the coming week. They will be at Richmond Hill Centre Terminal Tuesday August 16 and Wednesday August 17 from 1:00 pm to 6:30 pm. They will be at Finch GO Bus Terminal on Thursday August 18 from 1:00 pm to 6:30 pm, and again on Saturday August 20 from 11 am to 5:30 pm.
Correction to Autoload details: The threshold for triggering Autoload may be set between $20 and $60. The amount of the Autoload may be set between $20 and $1000.
July 28 update: After a Presto card is registered, it may be used immediately. In order for it to be fully activated, one must either “tap in” or perform a balance query at a Presto terminal after 24 hours. This amount of time is necessary for the registration information to propagate to all terminals in the system in order for it to be delivered to your card. If you want to log into your card’s account online, you will need to wait another 24 hours from your first post-24-hour tap before that can take place.
YRT rolled out Presto on its buses and VIVA service on July 18. Over the past week, they have held events at Finch Station and Richmond Hill Centre to provide up to 5000 cards with the $6 issuance fee waived. For the price of $19 (cash only) you will get a card with a $19 balance on it and it will be registered on site. They are registering the cards I had the opportunity to stop by Richmond Hill Centre to get a card and ask a few questions. Before getting into the technical details, let me say that the staff was very friendly and helpful, in particular Lori Bowers, YRT’s Public Relations Coordinator.
Currently on YRT, only the ticket fare is implemented. This means that when you “tap on” when boarding a bus or at a Vivastation, $2.60 will be deducted from your balance. They are working on implementing a monthly pass cap, but until that is in place they are recommending that people who are pass users continue with the pass. Despite this, if you use it for at least 32 fares in a single month from a single service provider, it is possible to get a receipt that may be used when filing your income tax return to get the transit tax credit.