T screws the pooch

[dmaze]

This morning I did, in fact, succeed in acquiring three CharlieCards at the Davis T. I showed them to a coworker today, who said, "huh, what are those?" and was surprised when I told him that you needed them to not get hosed even worse by the fare hike. I also saw this post in davis_square with more people being confused. And for that matter, if I didn't specifically know that they were handing out CharlieCards and that I wanted one, I would have registered the person as "person handing out irrelevant junk".

In between the fare restructuring and the prox card system, this really is a major change for T passengers. The T has at least given a token effort to communication, but without heavy attention to Usenet and mbta.com the vast majority of passengers (and certainly my coworkers) seem to have no clue what's going on. People might be less irate if they got told that subway passes went up about 35% just like all the other fares and got local bus access, instead of thinking that they got forced from subway passes on to more expensive combo passes which were inexplicably discounted. I think most people know there will be a fare increase but will be upset when their subway fare is $2 and not the promised $1.70 (and not $1.25); and most passholders are probably totally unaware that their free guest on Sunday is going away.

This is just a communication issue. The Diesel ran into something similar with their coffee cards, and wound up pushing back a significant change by six weeks. It's not too late for the T; they can still do things like have subway drivers announce the CharlieCard handouts. Fundamentally, it's something that has more practical impact to the typical commuter than "please report any unattended bags or packages to an MBTA employee"; shouldn't the T give it at least as much attention?

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

Yesterday I took a bus driven by a driver who was giving a long lecture about how we ought to get Charlie Cards to each individual who tried to pay with a ticket. He wasn't explaining *why* or the intricacies of the fare system, or any of that, he was just giving detailed instructions about how to do it and telling us we must. Never mind that once I have a ticket with money on it, my goal is to use up that money before doing anything else....

[desireearmfeldt]

(And, I would not have known about impending fare hike if you hadn't mentioned it...hm, maybe I heard it go by on the news once...Davis has a big friendly posting of the current fare schedule and all its complexities, the ones you say are going away. But no notice that this is due to change, at least not one I could find.)

[avacon.livejournal.com]

I just barely figured things out, but that's because they've
been putting up flyers at work and I'm curious enough
to read them in detail. Still, I missed the free Sunday guest
going away part.

Do you know if I can put cash for guests onto a monthly CharlieCard,
or do I need to get two of them for that?

[knell.livejournal.com]

Transport agencies in the US always seem to get this stuff very, very wrong. The fundamental principle of passenger communication - or anywhere that people are used to routine - is to tell them about stuff verbally as well as putting posters everywhere. Then tell them again. Keep telling them and eventually the message will start to get through. Then tell them a bit more until they're really sick of it, at which point they'll begin to actually process it. Even then, you'll still have people who have heard the announcements and seen the posters a zillion times but still go "Huh? What? Why wasn't I told? You suck!" when whatever change is happening finally happens.

For all their communication problems in other areas, this is something London Underground get right - I heard the announcement about changes to the Oyster rules (if you don't touch out, we'll charge you the max fare) about a hundred times in the last few weeks, and there were posters everywhere. I've never seen the MTA or the MBTA or any of the other US transport agencies whose territories I've visited do this sort of thing right.

Incidentally, is "Charlie" also a synonym for "cocaine" in the US?

[nonnihil.livejournal.com]

Picked up my Charlie Card this morning. The guy handing them out was definitely surprised and startled to be asked.

Unfortunately, the number of proximity cards interfering with one another in my wallet means that I can no longer just wave my wallet at card readers, but must actually take the cards out now.

If I ever create a system of card-mediated accounts for anything, I will just record the content of some other card for the database. The MBTA or the grocery store or the video store should just be able to use my library card as an account key, rather than issuing their own silly card. It's just a large integer after all, not anything high-tech.

[alphacygni]

I am very irritated at the lack of a pre-drilled hole in the charlie card. Now I can't put it on a lanyard or extending clip. I have to put it in my wallet, which pretty much defeats the convenience purpose right there.

[coraline]

i don't ride the T that often, but i have ridden it three times in the past two weeks, and the ONLY reason i know anything at all about the charlie cards is your post. that's pretty sad.

[iabervon.livejournal.com]

I still haven't seen anything about whether employer-provided monthly passes can be put on arbitrary cards, or if you need to use the card they give you (i.e., whether there's any point in me getting extra cards in case I lose the one that comes in the mail, to avoid the hassle of receiving a physical replacement).