Compass Card - Anyone started using them?
 

So Translink's Compass Card has rolled out for West Coast Express users.

They handed out a nice brochure and set up a dedicated website that aim to explain everything about it.

When I tried to buy a monthly pass, I see the following message:

"Monthly Passes can be purchased and tapped up to the 15th of each month. From the 16th, passes purchased will be eligible for next month's use."

Does this mean what think it means? So the monthly passes actually have fixed cycle you have to go along with? If you end up in a situation where you have to buy the monthly pass at the beginning of the month, you can only use it up to the 15th before you have to buy another one for the next month on the 16th?

If this is the case, what kind of fucking backward technology have they implemented? And of all the detailed information they have disclosed, I'm surprised I couldn't find this info anywhere, at least not easily.

If anyone has started using it, I'd appreciate your clarification.

You'd think technology and life would get easier as we progress but things just get more complicated and ass-backwards


I'll stick to driving :)

Well multicartual, drivers get shagged with decades old infrastructure that were built to support probably less than half of current population, not to mention the continued expansion of bike lanes.

whats the website?

from the way i understand it, is if you buy anything pass the 16th, its good for next calender month. to which i assume would be from beginning to end of the next month.

and anything purchased from the beginning up to the 15th is good for the month that it is purchased in.

Compass Card - Anyone started using them?
 

you can use it all month long. you can buy next months compass card after the 15th

+1 I wonder what they will do to those who buy the monthly pass most of the time but once a while switch to tickets for the odd months when they are traveling..... how will they calculate that on your compass account or do you have to manually select which plans you want.

frozen...

I asked this to one of the younger looking West Coast Express Station Attendants at Waterfront today and he gave me this nice detailed answer.

- The new West Coast Express (WCE) monthly passes are being re-aligned with the rest of the transit passes as "Calendar Month Passes". They are valid from the 1st of the month until the last day of the month, be it the 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st. The first monthly pass for WCE is for the month of July, since June is the transition month in which the 28-day passes are being phased out. So the first WCE monthly pass is valid from July 1st to July 31st. After that,(August) - August 1st to August 31st. And so on....

- WCE only operates on business days. In the month of July, their are 22 days which the WCE will be operating (not operating July 1st). So for July, you are getting 2 extra days of travel with the Calendar Month Pass than you would get with a 28-day pass. (28-day pass = 20 days of travel on WCE). Monthly pass price remains the same.

** The monthly pass for "August" can be purchased anytime between July 16th and August 15th. (If you purchase it after roughly August 8-10th, it is not really worth it to buy the month pass, but the attendant said the option is available until the 15th of the month b/c some people buy monthly passes and write them off as part of their own business expenses anyway). Likewise, the "September Pass" will be available to purchase after August 16th upto September 15th.


Mr.HappySilp.....

- The old WCE weekly passes are being discontinued. Their replacement is the new "Stored Value" system. The old weekly passes gave you almost a 19% discount compared to daily tickets. The new "Stored Value" system gives you the same 19% discount, but applied on a per-trip basis. The benefit? You get the discount of the previous weekly pass applied to your one-way trips, as you need to take them. The stored value amount will never expire.

***This is the interesting part which I like. You can have multiple "products" loaded onto your card simultaneously. Meaning you can have a Monthly pass loaded for July AND have upto $175 of "Stored Value" (ie CASH) loaded onto your card at the same time.

So for example, if you have a monthly pass for July loaded on your card AND have $175 of stored value, any 'tap' you make in the month of July will be considered as part of your monthly pass and WILL NOT EFFECT your $175. Now say in August you decide to take a couple weeks off, any tap you make in August, the system will detect you have no monthly pass for August loaded, so it will bump down to the next cheapest fare category you have - the Stored Value (which again is using the same discount price as the previous discontinued weekly pass). So that's a big plus. Pay as you go for the months you don't have monthly passes loaded.

The last added benefit which I was told, which wasn't listed on any of the brochures, was that the complimentary unlimited free transfer benefit time to buses, skytrain, Canada Line and SeaBus has been doubled from the previous 90 minutes to 180 minutes - a full 3 hours of unlimited travel anywhere on the system after tapping in at a WCE station.

strong first post.

Fuck the compass card and everyone involved in getting it approved.