Inter-agency transfers should be heavily discounted, in particular those that see lots of transfer volume, like BART and Caltrain with the various regional transit agencies, to encourage people to take transit and not to drive to begin their trips.
S
Sprague
12 years ago
Featured
kids of all ages (ie. including those age 13-18) should receive the child fare on BART - something that is not currently the case; family weekend fares (ie. kids ride free or four people ride for the price of two) would be attractive and affordable ways to encourage families/groups of people to ride transit instead of drive
A
Adrian Brandt
12 years ago
Station- (or distance-) based fares for Caltrain. The arbitrarily long and unfair fare zone boundaries are a hold-over from the days of human-issued punched tickets -- pieces of paper that could practically only have a small number of fare zones on them to be punched and checked, etc.
T
Thea Selby
12 years ago
Give it some local personality. We are not a Clipper city/region!
P
Peter Straus
12 years ago
Need far better accounting system to more easily track charges on multiple family Clipper cards.
J
Jonathan Schuppert
12 years ago
Use Clipper for bike share instead of a separate key fob. Include vending machines at stations and on Caltrain and allow use of a Clipper (this is done in Japan and is really convenient). Consider shared systems where I could use my Clipper in Chicago or Boston and they could use theirs here. Each month Clipper, Charlie, and others would settle their differences. Clipper use on Amtrak would be great too. Clipper activated lockers for storage and for bike lockers would help too. So many possibilities. Integrate...integrate...integrate!
T
Tracy Lynn
12 years ago
Just one more thought: Make the Clipper card service more transparent, so that when a monthly Caltrain user forgets to either tag on or tag off, the user can figure out how to explain to customer service what happened. As it stands now, the system is pretty muddy, even to the customer service people. It's also hard to tell if the machines used for tagging on/off are working or not. I've had problems with them in the past and was not tagged off when I did tag off. It caused problems the next month I tried to tag on. I can't imagine a worst system for Caltrain users.
T
Tracy Lynn
12 years ago
I don't think "Opportunities for integration" are a good idea until the Clipper service can really explain to users how the transit dollars they put on their card disappears. This service doesn't seem to have the capability to smoothly integrate all the services a user might need. I see it getting really messed up and $$ disappearing off a user's Clipper Card.
T
Tracy Lynn
12 years ago
Also, get rid of the $1.25 fee that Caltrain/Clipper insists is important to activating the card. No one has been able to explain to me what the $1.25 is for: It's not an activation fee; it doesn't pay for the card; it's not a deposit; people at Clipper can't even tell me if I can ever get it back. I have heard that the other transit agencies don't charge it, either.
J
Joanne Petersen
12 years ago
Fix the Caltrain "tag on/off" setup so that you are automatically tagged when you are in range of a reader, so that physically touching the reader is not necessary. Or some other way to automatically tag off at your normal stop instead of the end of the line.
N
nik kaestner
12 years ago
There should be one fare structure for the entire Bay Area. Germany is a good model for how this is done.
V
Virginia
12 years ago
The more inclusive it is, the better!
H
H. Hardy
12 years ago
Change the "tag off" feature on Caltrain so that you can tag on and off on the train and in a new design that makes forgetting to tag off virtually impossible.
D
David Selassie
12 years ago
Being able to use Clipper for all your transportation payment needs would be great: tolls, parking, and bikeshare.
L
Lucas Ramirez
12 years ago
Agree with this comment, as there's no reason why this shouldn't be possible: "Enable Clipper to use distance-based fares instead of zone-based fares for Caltrain, since you know exactly where we get on and off. It shouldn't be more expensive to go from Menlo Park to Redwood City than from Redwood City to Millbrae."
J
Jennifer Gile
12 years ago
Please make a zone upgrade on Caltrain easy to use with Clipper!
J
Jeff Rensch
12 years ago
Services integrated and transparent, as though there was one transportation agency instead of the many competing entities listed above.
A
Anonymous
12 years ago
Set up Clipper to simplify ticketing. For example, instead of having options for an 8-ride or a monthly pass, the system should just automatically apply fare discounts once a user hits a certain number of rides per month.
Enable Clipper to use distance-based fares instead of zone-based fares for Caltrain, since you know exactly where we get on and off. It shouldn't be more expensive to go from Menlo Park to Redwood City than from Redwood City to Millbrae.
N
Nancy Thomas
12 years ago
Senior discount start at 62 years of age not 65. Amtrak starts at 62.
N
Nada Ballator
12 years ago
All transit agencies should have the same rules--a MUNI user should know what to expect from CalTrain or VTA service. Can our card be made to work in other ciiies, such as LA?
Inter-agency transfers should be heavily discounted, in particular those that see lots of transfer volume, like BART and Caltrain with the various regional transit agencies, to encourage people to take transit and not to drive to begin their trips.
kids of all ages (ie. including those age 13-18) should receive the child fare on BART - something that is not currently the case; family weekend fares (ie. kids ride free or four people ride for the price of two) would be attractive and affordable ways to encourage families/groups of people to ride transit instead of drive
Station- (or distance-) based fares for Caltrain. The arbitrarily long and unfair fare zone boundaries are a hold-over from the days of human-issued punched tickets -- pieces of paper that could practically only have a small number of fare zones on them to be punched and checked, etc.
Give it some local personality. We are not a Clipper city/region!
Need far better accounting system to more easily track charges on multiple family Clipper cards.
Use Clipper for bike share instead of a separate key fob. Include vending machines at stations and on Caltrain and allow use of a Clipper (this is done in Japan and is really convenient). Consider shared systems where I could use my Clipper in Chicago or Boston and they could use theirs here. Each month Clipper, Charlie, and others would settle their differences. Clipper use on Amtrak would be great too. Clipper activated lockers for storage and for bike lockers would help too. So many possibilities. Integrate...integrate...integrate!
Just one more thought: Make the Clipper card service more transparent, so that when a monthly Caltrain user forgets to either tag on or tag off, the user can figure out how to explain to customer service what happened. As it stands now, the system is pretty muddy, even to the customer service people. It's also hard to tell if the machines used for tagging on/off are working or not. I've had problems with them in the past and was not tagged off when I did tag off. It caused problems the next month I tried to tag on. I can't imagine a worst system for Caltrain users.
I don't think "Opportunities for integration" are a good idea until the Clipper service can really explain to users how the transit dollars they put on their card disappears. This service doesn't seem to have the capability to smoothly integrate all the services a user might need. I see it getting really messed up and $$ disappearing off a user's Clipper Card.
Also, get rid of the $1.25 fee that Caltrain/Clipper insists is important to activating the card. No one has been able to explain to me what the $1.25 is for: It's not an activation fee; it doesn't pay for the card; it's not a deposit; people at Clipper can't even tell me if I can ever get it back. I have heard that the other transit agencies don't charge it, either.
Fix the Caltrain "tag on/off" setup so that you are automatically tagged when you are in range of a reader, so that physically touching the reader is not necessary. Or some other way to automatically tag off at your normal stop instead of the end of the line.
There should be one fare structure for the entire Bay Area. Germany is a good model for how this is done.
The more inclusive it is, the better!
Change the "tag off" feature on Caltrain so that you can tag on and off on the train and in a new design that makes forgetting to tag off virtually impossible.
Being able to use Clipper for all your transportation payment needs would be great: tolls, parking, and bikeshare.
Agree with this comment, as there's no reason why this shouldn't be possible: "Enable Clipper to use distance-based fares instead of zone-based fares for Caltrain, since you know exactly where we get on and off. It shouldn't be more expensive to go from Menlo Park to Redwood City than from Redwood City to Millbrae."
Please make a zone upgrade on Caltrain easy to use with Clipper!
Services integrated and transparent, as though there was one transportation agency instead of the many competing entities listed above.
Set up Clipper to simplify ticketing. For example, instead of having options for an 8-ride or a monthly pass, the system should just automatically apply fare discounts once a user hits a certain number of rides per month. Enable Clipper to use distance-based fares instead of zone-based fares for Caltrain, since you know exactly where we get on and off. It shouldn't be more expensive to go from Menlo Park to Redwood City than from Redwood City to Millbrae.
Senior discount start at 62 years of age not 65. Amtrak starts at 62.
All transit agencies should have the same rules--a MUNI user should know what to expect from CalTrain or VTA service. Can our card be made to work in other ciiies, such as LA?