TTC phasing out tickets and tokens
Posted June 22, 2015 4:49 pm.
Last Updated June 23, 2015 8:21 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
By the end of 2016 you won’t have to rifle through your wallet or purse anymore to find a TTC ticket or token.
Instead, commuters will have to use a Presto card or cash to ride the subway, streetcar or bus.
The Toronto Transit Commission announced on Monday that it will stop selling tickets and tokens in about a year-and-a-half once the Presto system is fully implemented.
“The current plan is to stop selling tickets and tokens and passes towards the end of 2016 – that may be into the beginning of 2017,” Chris Upfold, the TTC’s chief customer service officer, explained. “We have a contractual responsibility to stop accepting tickets and tokens into the mid-2017.”
The Presto system allows commuters to load money onto a card and then tap it on a scanner to pay for transit services.
Upfold said the new system will change the function of ticket collectors, by taking them out of the booths and allowing them to provide better customer service for commuters.
“They are no longer tied to that primary entrance of the station, they can be at the secondary entrance, the auto entrances, they can be on the platform,” he said.
Commuters will still be able to pay cash to ride the rocket.
Children under 12 continue to ride the TTC for free but they will have to tap a Presto card, which won’t have any cash value on it, to use the service.
