Thursday, November 19, 2015

SunRail ticketing is SNAFU

Today we were digging the cute covers SunRail now has to put on its malfunctioning ticket validators. Guess the rationale must be if it’s broke, at least make it look good.

The non-functioning ticket validator in the accompanying photo is mid-platform on the “infamous” southbound side at downtown Orlando’s Church Street. Since it’s in the middle of the platform, at the busiest morning station at SunRail you have tons of folks waiting at the last validator before South Street to “tap off.”

There are at least two other non-functioning validators with the cute covers at Winter Park and Lake Mary. Not that we’re keeping score or anything,(maybe a little bit)  but the SunRail ticketing system has sucked from the first day of revenue service in May 2014. Yet it’s still limping along.

The ticketing system was installed by a division of tech giant Xerox. Hopefully some heads have rolled by now at Xerox or SunRail for this lousy system. It’s the SunRail riders who ultimately pay for this failure with inconvenience and frustration.

And yet the SunRail managers wonder why more people aren’t riding the train. Maybe if SunRail gets its act together with the ticketing system and a user-friendly schedule more people will start riding.

Who knows, maybe SunRail will actually get the ticketing system fully operational by the time we get weekend service. Don’t hold your breath….


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