New for 2016: Compass card rage

As I was coming out of the Waterfront SkyTrain station today I noticed a man off to my left standing near one of the fare gates and who seemed rather agitated. Apparently he was having problems getting the chosen gate to recognize his shiny new Compass card. He finally got through and angrily strode forward, holding the card out before him and shaking it angrily. “This card is taking too long to work!” he snarled to no one in particular. He then spotted a transit attendant standing nearby and marched to him, where he continued to rail against his slothful card.

This is the first instance of what I call Compass card rage I’ve witnessed, though I suspect it will not be the last.

Other Compass card hijinks I’ve seen:

  • people approaching the same game at the same time from opposite directions. As you may guess, only one person wins here but in reality both lose in the ensuing blockage/confusion
  • it is in fact possible to follow someone through a gate before it closes
  • people blithely following someone else through a gate, tapping their card, having it fail (because the gate needs to close before it will register the next tap) and continuing on their merry way, not realizing that they have just been charged for three zones instead of one or two
  • “Out of service” tape plastered over gates. Now imagine multiple gates going down in a station that only has a few and everyone at rush hour being funneled through one or two working gates. Happy times.

Also, whoever approved the astonishingly annoying tone that plays when you tap your card should be forced to listen to that sound all day every day until driven mad. This would likely take less than 24 hours.

You might say I’m not especially impressed with the Compass card system. In fact, I’ll say it: I am not especially impressed with the Compass card system.

If they could fix it to work flawlessly with my smart watch in, say, two months, I might be willing to upgrade my assessment from “not especially impressed” to “will grudgingly tolerate.” Translink has promised smart device support sometime. I’m going to speculate it will roll out in the year 3000.

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