The IT Nerd

Once upon a time, those living in the Greater Toronto Area were promised a new and easy way to take transit in the area. That was called the Presto Card. Similar to London’s Oyster card, it promised the ability to tap on and ride transit as well as manage and track what you spend on transit. However the rollout of the Presto Card system for those living in the Greater Toronto Area has been painful to say the least as problem after problem has cropped up. Anyone that I speak to doesn’t like Presto and those negative feelings towards the Presto card are likely to continue with the latest issue with the card. Apparently since the end of August, the transaction history and remaining balance on the card hasn’t been updating for Presto Card users. Something that I’ve been able to reproduce. This is a screenshot from my Presto Card app on my iPhone XS:

The card is my wife’s card and she uses it every single day. Yet there’s no updates on her travel activity since the end of August. This is the same when you check the Presto Card website. For example, when I try to list the activity history for September, this is what I get:

Clearly there is something wrong on the Presto end of the fence. But in the interest of trying to make sure that it wasn’t me, I uninstalled and reinstalled the app and it didn’t change anything. On top of that I cleared the cache of my browser and tried a different browser when using the Presto website and that did not change anything either. Thus proving that Presto has an issue. This morning, I reported this to Presto via Twitter:

It seems that the @PRESTOcard app and website are broken. Transactions haven’t been updated since the end of August. Uninstalled and reinstalled with no change. And quick check of Twitter shows that I am not the only one with this issue. #fail pic.twitter.com/KFrOfeWEIH

— The IT Nerd (@The_IT_Nerd) September 10, 2019

Out of interest, I took a look around Twitter and it seems that I am not alone:

@PRESTOcard what is the purpose of your app? It’s Sept10 and THIS👇🏾 is last update?!? Routinely this thing is grossly out of date. This isn’t next-gen tech stuff. Any coffee app gives you instant updates. Fix this! 🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/tkOYFrKYwZ

— azhar khn (@bobsakomano) September 10, 2019

@PRESTOcard why hasn't my presto app updated?

— Greg79 (@Greg7912) September 7, 2019

@PRESTOcard the mobile app keeps showing incorrect information. Why is that??

— xChillerx (@kevin_333_light) August 31, 2019

https://twitter.com/Chibi_Matt/status/1165251089966534656

And from what I can tell, all the responses from Presto are less than helpful. Which means that negative feelings towards Presto will continue. If I were Presto, I’d admit to the fact that there is some sort of wide spread issue going on, I would apologize for said wide spread issue, then I would say when it is going to get fixed and make sure that they hit that target. And since this is the latest issue with the rollout of this fare payment system, Presto really needs to answer some tough questions about how they intend to reassure users of the Presto card system that they can get this back on track and that they can rely on this system. Because until they do that, people will continue to complain, negative press like this will be generated, and people will be less likely to take transit as they will have to deal with a fare payment system that clearly is sub optimal.

UPDATE: This appears to be resolved as of 9/11/2019.

UPDATE #2: The next day this issue resurfaced. Clearly Presto can’t get their act together.

This entry was posted on September 10, 2019 at 9:58 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Presto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.