Chicago's New Smart Cards Make Commuting Even Harder

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By Denise Lu2013-12-17 11:14:32 UTC

"Stop. Stop. Go."

The error message blinks back at commuters from electronic turnstiles in the Chicago subway stations. Many need to swipe several times before the city's new transit card even registers. And that's only one of the challenges the system currently faces.

Ventra, the new electronic open-fare system for Chicago’s public transit system, launched August 2013. The Ventra smart cards are slated to replace the city’s old magnetic strip fare card system before the new year.

See also: MIT Students Design 'Sesame Ring’ to Replace Boston Transit Cards

In 2011, the Chicago Transit Board approved a $454 million contract to build a new open-standards fare system, the largest automated fare collection contract ever inked in North America. The result, Ventra, is a large component of the new system mandated by the Illinois General Assembly for the three main transportation systems in Chicago — Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace — by 2015.

The legislation required a new open-fare system that would allow riders to use contactless bank cards (debit or credit cards, for example) that riders can tap on a card reader, as opposed to agency-issued fare cards, like the old CTA options.

The CTA, which includes the "El" (the city’s elevated rapid transit system) and city buses, is the first of the three systems to transition to Ventra, which is replacing old magnetic strip CTA cards and passes. Formerly, riders could only pay with cash (and credit cards at limited kiosks) for day passes or pay-per-use passes. Ventra now allows riders to load their new cards using credit card or cash, either for a single card that can be a pay-per-use or for a day pass card.

The remaining two Chicago transport options, Pace and Metra, the suburban bus network and commuter rail system, respectively, haven't yet transitioned. Pace accepts CTA cards in addition to issuing its own bus passes. Metra, which extends to Chicago’s outer suburbs, operates on paper ticketing based on distance travelled. Passengers can either buy paper tickets at stations with agents or board trains and buy tickets onboard before conductors individually punch tickets.

It's a complex transportation network made more difficult by the variety of ticketing options still afforded to customers.

Needless to say, Ventra's initial rollout has not been a smooth implementation. Riders complain of consistent problems, from overcharges to faulty card readers.

Ventra charges a $5 new card fee at kiosks, which can be reimbursed as card credit after the customer registers his card online or by phone, within 90 days. The CTA’s old magnetic stripe system accounted for riders without bank accounts or access to computers — a customer simply put cash onto his card, without worrying about online registration.

Since its launch, Ventra has become an infamous inside joke for Chicagoans. Wait times for Ventra’s customer service call centers are a well-known metric. And don't forget the parody Twitter handle, a social media blemish on top of the local controversy.

"The first day that I had my card, I ended up taking cash onto the bus, because I was afraid it wasn’t going to work," says Jay Bastian, a regular Pace and Metra commuter who switched to Ventra at the beginning of November. When he originally tried to activate his Ventra card, Bastian had trouble with the online management system and ended up calling customer service, which didn’t help. Bastian then took to Ventra’s Facebook page, where eventually a Ventra member offered to activate his card from the backend.

So why the sudden change? Brian Steele, CTA’s vice president of communications and marketing, says it was about time.

"CTA’s existing fare-payment system was nearly 20 years old and nearing the end of its useful lifespan," Steele writes in an email.

Ventra contracts day-to-day fare payment operations to Cubic Transportation Systems, a transit tech company based in San Diego. In theory, the outsourcing helps CTA focus on other goals. Steele says this alone would save the agency an estimated $50 million over the life of the 12-year contract.

Ventra is part of a giant push for open-fare systems in the U.S. According to Nadereh Moini, research assistant professor at the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago, an open-fare system can actually benefit a transit system by decreasing a train’s dwell-time and a rider’s transition time between different legs of her journey.

Image: Flickr, Steven Vance

"When passengers want to transfer from one system to another, there is usually a problem, because they don’t use one fare system," Moini says. She explains this would increase the amount of time a bus stops at a station, which would increase costs for the agency, and would tack on time for a rider if she needs to transition to another card system.

"The goal, in my opinion, is the right goal," Moini says. "But how to implement it, this is something else. There’s so much room for improvement."

Moini believes the problem is not the system itself, but the deployment of the new system.

Cubic might also be to blame.

Cubic is one of the largest mass transit tech companies in the world. It operates in 60 countries worldwide and is behind some of the biggest transit systems, including the London Oyster and San Francisco's BART. However, even in its past, Cubic has experienced its share of glitches, from hidden fees to double-charging customers.

CTA has recognized said issues and has reassured the Chicago public it will not pay Cubic the $454 million until systems are running smoothly. Just recently, the system rolled out new software updates that already decrease the stall-time between a rider's turnstile card tap and her "go" message.

Yet, riders are still having trouble. Compared to other smart transit systems, Ventra is logging a fairly negative public review. Unlike Ventra, Boston’s contactless electronic CharlieCard system faced no huge bouts of complaints upon implementation in late 2006 and early 2007. In fact, despite minor problems, customers lauded the system.

The MBTA pre-encoded its CharlieCards so they would be ready to go; customers don’t have to fuss with online registration like Ventra. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) also rapidly deployed the cards in a matter of months, whereas the CTA is still trying to fade out old CTA cards four months after Ventra’s introduction. As a result, it had to push back transition deadlines.

Metra, Chicago’s third main transit system, will be the last to transition to Ventra in the future, with a pilot goal of mid-2014. Metra spokesman Michael Gillis says the train system already accepts Ventra as a retail card. "Our next step is to work with the CTA to integrate our system so people can use the transit part of the card, as well," he says.

Gillis believes Metra will not experience the same problems that currently plague the CTA. Whereas now riders have to scan their Ventra cards on readers and enter through a turnstile, Metra hopes to integrate Ventra by letting riders use it as a supplementary way to pay for their tickets.

"Right now, our conductors can’t accept credit cards; we’re not equipped to do that. If you don’t have cash, there’s no solution for you," Gillis says. The new smartphone ticketing would allow riders to buy their ticket through a native app and show the receipt to the conductor. Or riders could choose to pay with their Ventra cards, as well.

Metra rider Bastian, however, isn’t taking the chance. Bastian says he still prefers his current method of monthly paper passes, which CTA mails to him. "I see what they’re saying," he says, "but to me I wouldn’t even take that chance when I know that what I have now is just as good, if not better."

Bastian isn’t the only commuter annoyed with the change. The incongruence in its implementation may be a reason for Ventra’s roadblocks. While CTA and Pace are trying to transition wholly over to Ventra by nixing previous magnetic strip card and pass systems, Metra is still trying to parse out different options for riders by offering Ventra on the side. Add this to the slow rollout of the cards and a slew of technical difficulties and it’s likely Chicagoans will complain about Ventra far beyond the new year.

Image: Flickr, Steve Vance.

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