Montreal City Weblog

Kate 09:03 on 2019-12-17 Permalink Reply  

• j2 09:31 on 2019-12-17 Permalink

  To me that spins like you can pay for a pass at the kiosk and maybe even a ride on the bus with tap, but not keep the express ticket on the phone.

  Express will work even if the phone died so is clearly a better solution – so way over the heads of whoever does STM/Opus. Even tap will probably be the most basic implementation that you can think of.

• Joey 12:44 on 2019-12-17 Permalink

  Yeah sounds like they will accept Apple Pay (and, I guess, any contact system of payment) as a method of payment – i.e., you can tap your phone/watch/credit card to complete a transaction at an Opus dispensary, but you will not be able to load your Opus card onto your phone’s wallet app and tap your phone on the bus or at a metro turnstile. But it’s really not clear.

• Blork 12:51 on 2019-12-17 Permalink

  Yeah, pretty unclear, but I think Joey has it. So it’s only really useful for people who don’t use an OPUS card. OTOH that might mean more casual users*, simply because people are fickle and I suspect a lot of people don’t use the bus “casually” simply because they don’t want to have to deal with figuring out the fare and exact change (who even carries cash these days?) etc. Whereas if it’s just a tap of the phone then hey, let’s jump on this bus.

  “Casual user” defined as someone who generally doesn’t use public transit because they just walk or ride a bike or skateboard or whatever, but about once a month they’re out somewhere with a longish walk (or expensive Uber ride) ahead of them, but hey look, there’s a 55 or an 80 or whatever but “FFS I don’t have exact change so forget it.” I suspect there are actually a LOT of people who fit that description.

• DeWolf 13:13 on 2019-12-17 Permalink

  I’m a casual user and I generally keep tickets on my Opus card, but on those occasions when I’m out it would be great to be able to use my credit card to pay for a fare.

  I’ve never understood why you can’t just add cash value onto an Opus and have it deducted when you tap into the metro or onto a bus. Presto does that in Ontario, Compass does it in Vancouver…

• Blork 13:15 on 2019-12-17 Permalink

  I’m referring to people who don’t even have an Opus card because they never take the bus (because it’s a hassle blah blah blah).

• Spi 13:33 on 2019-12-17 Permalink

  DeWolf you’re clearly asking for too much, keep in mind this is the same OPUS card that “expires” after 4 years for some nebulous contractual reason with their supplier.

• Joey 14:30 on 2019-12-17 Permalink

  @Blork not just cash, exact change. Remember that woman who was dumped in between stops because she only had a $5 bill?

  When Opus was introduced the STM did a major promotional blitz talking about how they were learning from major transit agencies the world over, how Opus was going to take the best of all worlds, etc. Well, here we are.

• Bert 15:19 on 2019-12-17 Permalink

  Spi, the reason that the card expires is that there is an SSL certificate in there and it’s the certificate that expires. Yes, it’s an arbitrary period and the supplier does indeed sell more cards this way but it’s also to help protect the STM and the contents of the card. Given enough time any certificate can be cracked. Putting a death-date on it and the contents are only valuable for that period. Event the Tyrrell Corporation put pre-determined death-dates on (some) of their products.

  Compare debit cards and credit cards. After the expiration date, the credit card (expiry and CVV) is worthless for purchases. You could mail an expired CC to your favourite Nigerian prince and he won’t be able to purchase with it. Give the same guy your debit and he can try all he wants, up to other limits that the bank may impose. (e.g. number of failed tries, etc.)