{"id":2246,"date":"2011-07-26T09:59:13","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T14:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vivanext.com\/blog\/?p=2246"},"modified":"2011-07-26T09:59:13","modified_gmt":"2011-07-26T14:59:13","slug":"york-region-is-ready-to-presto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/2011\/07\/26\/york-region-is-ready-to-presto\/","title":{"rendered":"York Region is ready to Presto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PRESTO<\/a><\/p>\n

In London, it\u2019s an Oyster<\/a>. In Hong Kong, they call it an Octopus<\/a>. Boston has its Charlie Card<\/a>, and Atlanta loves its Breeze<\/a>. And now York Region \u2013 along with other GTHA and Ottawa municipalities \u2013 is moving into the ranks of cities with smartcard technology for their transit system.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking of course about the launch of PRESTO this week in York Region on YRT\\Viva services. PRESTO was developed through a partnership with the Province of Ontario, GO Transit and nine municipal transit partners in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and in Ottawa, and will allow customers to ride on any participating transit system without pre-purchasing printed tickets or tokens.<\/p>\n

Having access to PRESTO is great news for transit riders in York Region. Because PRESTO uses \u201cstored-value\u201d fare payments, customers can reload their card on the\u00a0PRESTO website<\/a> or at designated locations, and never have to worry about having a printed ticket or the right change. All you have to do is tap your card either on the PRESTO card reader at a vivastation before you board Viva, or on the on-board PRESTO machine on a YRT bus, and the system will automatically deduct the fare from your card\u2019s balance (GO Transit riders also tap off at the end of their trip).<\/p>\n

Smartcards are the way of the future for all great transit systems, and with good reason. These cards speed up the process of buying transit fares, they eliminate the paper waste associated with tickets, and they mean you\u2019ll never need to rummage through your pockets for bus fare again.<\/p>\n

One of the most important, long-term benefits is that, because smartcards often involve multiple transit services, they make it easier for passengers to travel across municipal boundaries. Instead of needing to purchase individual tickets for separate transit services, PRESTO is the only ticket riders will need to use on any participating system, including YRT\\Viva<\/a>, GO Transit<\/a> (selected rail stations), Brampton Transit<\/a> (Z\u00dcM), Burlington Transit<\/a>, Hamilton Street Railway<\/a>, Mississauga Transit<\/a> (MiWay), Oakville Transit<\/a>, OC Transpo<\/a> (Ottawa) and at select\u00a0 TTC subway stations<\/a>. And more stations and transit agencies are joining PRESTO throughout 2011 and 2012.<\/p>\n

The PRESTO website<\/a> and call centre (1-8-PRESTO-123) have all the information you\u2019ll need to learn more about how PRESTO works in general, and where it can take you.<\/p>\n

To introduce riders to PRESTO, YRT\\Viva has representatives showing riders how to use PRESTO<\/a>, helping them register online, and distributing up to 5,000 specially-priced cards. To get your new PRESTO card, check out the YRT\\Viva website<\/a> for distribution locations and hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In London, it\u2019s an Oyster. In Hong Kong, they call it an Octopus. Boston has its Charlie Card, and Atlanta loves its Breeze. And now York Region \u2013 along with other GTHA and Ottawa municipalities \u2013 is moving into the ranks of cities with smartcard technology for their transit system. I\u2019m talking of course about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,30,59],"tags":[429,6,7,9],"class_list":["post-2246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-rapidways","category-subways","tag-presto","tag-viva","tag-vivanext","tag-york-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2246"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2249,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246\/revisions\/2249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}