Cranky Charlie

While the MBTA's new electronic fare collection system is a great idea in theory, the reality is that such systems are really only as good as the technology that they're based around. The T has introduced all sorts of incentives to encourage you to use the RFID-based tap-and-go CharlieCard, including discounted fares (or, more accurately, avoidance of a surcharge) and free transfers between busses and subways. If you pay with a paper CharlieTicket, you are subject to the surcharge and only get transfers between local busses. If you pay with cash on board, you do not get free transfers at all.

Again, it's a great idea in theory, but as the Charlie on the MBTA blog points out, malfunctions are commonplace. Too often, CharlieCards fail to register when tapped. You get the dreaded "See Agent" message on the turnstile, first requiring you to track down an agent, then requiring you to make them figure out what the problem is. More often than not, they have no idea, and you are reluctant to try your card again, lest a second fare be deducted. Then, when you go to transfer to a bus, it might not be able to detect whether or not the card was used on the subway within the past two hours.

Technological snafus happen. It's a fact of life in the 21st century. The problem is that there's no paper trail backing you up when you claim something is wrong. The CharlieCard is a nondescript piece of plastic the size of a credit card. Nothing gets printed on it when you use it. The CharlieTicket prints your initial value, but does not show anything about how much money has been deducted or when it was used last. If you try to board a bus and claim that you are entitled to a free transfer even though the farebox charges you, it's your word against the MBTA's. By contrast, under the old system, with paper transfers, it was simple. You show up with a paper transfer in hand and you get on the bus for free. With the tokens, you buy them and have physical proof that you've paid your fare. In 25 years of riding the T, I had a subway turnstile fail on me exactly once. Even under the old system, monthly passes had the date and validity printed on them, so in case the turnstile wasn't working, you would just flash it to the person in the booth and they could let you in manually.

The dilemma is that the way to solve the problem defeats the purpose of the technology in the first place. To make the system failsafe, fareboxes and vending machines would print out transfer slips that you could use on the next leg of your journey. But why have the special RFID card or declining balance ticket when you are using printed paper fare media anyway? I guess what I'm trying to say is that as long as the T is requiring us to use modern technology if we want to avoid surcharges, it had better make damn sure that the technology is as close to perfectly reliable as possible.

P.S. It's another topic for another day, but while the Charlie Card system was designed to simplify the T's byzantine fare structure, it has merely made the structure equally byzantine but in a different way.