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Since Golden Gate's commuter ticket books was zone specific, they had to print multiple types of zone books on a frequent basis to cover all six zones and that meant a lot of money being wasted. The commuter books are very similar to Caltrain's 8-ride tickets because using them came with a discount and had an expiration date. Golden Gate Transit and Ferry was one of the first transit agencies to adopt TransLink (old name prior to the switch to the newer 'Clipper' branding).īack in the days, Golden Gate had two options for passengers to pay their fare, pay in cash for a one-way ride, or pre-purchase frequent commuter ticket books. One Transit Agency Did it a Long Time Ago No worries about not having enough 8-rides, no worries about last minute zone switching because your significant other wants to meet you at the mall, or you forgot to grab groceries before heading home. Passengers tag-on at their starting point, and tag-off resulting in being charged at 15% off the one-way cash fare. Everyone can use e-cash which is like having cash in your wallet to pay for any transit rides you want.

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If you ever cracked the numbers on how much an 8-ride can save passengers, the amount is 15% (give or take around 0.1%). I realized there's a more critical problem with Caltrain and Clipper, 8-rides is just pointless.Įnd 8-rides on Clipper and give everyone an across the board 15% discount by using the universal e-cash fund. Sure, that added some more ad revenue and fans flocking to my blog. I felt like I was a puppet spokesperson for Caltrain.

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I wrote on my blog about how to properly use it, taking more of Caltrain's side to say that as long as what's out there, follow the rules that turned-out ugly when Caltrain's web geeks decided to link my blog to their website and I had a flurry of mean spirited commentary on my blog.

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What was kept was the expiration rules, but the zone upgrade was not available anymore, thereby passengers wanting to go further had to buy an additional 8-ride to their Clipper card or just buy a one-way ticket at the non-discounted (regular) price. The rules of the program had to change because of the way Clipper operated. Not long ago, Caltrain switched from paper 8-rides to Clipper only and it came with some mixed fanfare. The tickets had a few basic rules, including an expiration date for use, and any passenger needing to travel further than what's listed on the 8-ride can pay for a zone upgrade ticket. It used to be 10-rides until the validation machines at Caltrain stations kept malfunctioning. While we have the same exact goals, our views on how to implement it is slightly different.Ĩ-ride tickets has been a staple on Caltrain for a long time. Soon enough, I learned my fellow blogger, John Murphy, beat me to the punch. Well, there has to be a solution, and I thought of one as I left it in the comments.

There's also a new order from Amtrak management (contracted to run Caltrain) to basically be as unforgiving to a Clipper card user whose card is invalid or just having trouble. Just recently, SF Weekly published an article mentioning about how bad it's gotten with Clipper card passengers on Caltrain.

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