At French School Confidential: A comparison of Montreal and Toronto bus transfers.
I would only add that the main difference between the two is that Montreal transfers are designed to be read by machine (and bus drivers who understand their codes), while Toronto transfers are designed to be read by people.
I’ve always liked our punch-card transfer system. It just works, and has so far resisted modernization efforts that have changed just about everything from mechanical to electronic: Parking meters, thermostats, car windows/ignition/steering/locks, radio tuners… How long before the transfer goes too?
Howdy!
Once they introduce the smart card
http://stm.info/English/info/smartcard2008-QA.htm I expect that the transfer will go the way of the dodo.
I give it a year. We’re soon going to have electronic fare cards.
Thank you so much for the link – it was a big fat shock to be running through my daily blog reading and see a link to…. me!
Was that a rhetorical question? Because if you really want an answer, it’s March 2008.
I figured that as well, but what are we replacing them with? What will people who pay their fare in cash get back to use as a transfer?
I don’t think this is so much about transfer so much as what they reflect about the city. As a Montrealer who just did a 2.5-year stint in the T-dot, I was amused at the metaphor. Montreal, lazy and relaxed, just getting the job done; Toronto, bureaucratic and orderly, ordering you to CONFORM, and yeah… fascist. Pretty accurate if you ask me.
“I figured that as well, but what are we replacing them with? What will people who pay their fare in cash get back to use as a transfer?”
The transfers will be a paper ticket with a magnetic strip, similar to what the weekly passes are like now. So really, not a huge change.
That seems like an awful waste for a one-time use thing.
In terms of paper, yeah.
Laval is already using these new transfers so if you have a reason to, uh, go to Laval and take a bus, you’ll see what Montreal’s will be like.