Clipper Card Hits Headwinds
Introduced full of promise, the mass transit payment system has encountered glitches
Bright blue Clipper cards are supposed to work as universal payment for seven Bay Area public transit services. But when Travis Stone swiped his card at the MacArthur BART station in Oakland last month, the turnstile failed to open. He tried another, and another, to no avail.
Other passengers also swiped and were rebuffed, which Stone said was observed by a uniformed BART employee. “He was standing there by the turnstiles, watching, and just laughing,” Stone said. (When asked about the matter, a BART spokesman said there was no record of the incident.)
Frustrated, Stone broadcast a message about his aggravation on Twitter, joining an emerging online chorus of discontent with Clipper. In addition, tens of thousands of calls pour into Clipper’s customer service hot line each month.
Clipper, named for the high-speed 19th-century ships that revolutionized sea travel, is hitting a few headwinds, including system failures and overcharging customers.
The service began in June 2010 — the first one-card-serves-all solution for the region’s fragmented transit system — simplifying access and payment to regional trains, buses, subway lines, streetcars and ferries, all with varying fare systems.
In some ways it has been remarkably successful. In 15 months, card usage has grown to 500,000 transactions, systemwide, per weekday, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the regional transit agency that oversees the program. Forty-three percent of Muni rides and 36 percent of BART rides use Clipper.
But it has proved difficult to eliminate all the glitches. And some expected improvements, like increasing Muni efficiency, have failed to materialize.
Clipper was built and is operated by Cubic, a San Diego military contractor and transportation company. To date, the system has cost $140 million, with another $17.6 million expected in the 2011-12 fiscal year.
Assessing the full extent of Clipper’s issues is difficult. Officials at the transportation commission, and representatives of BART, Caltrain and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency all played down problems, saying they represented a tiny fraction of passengers’ experiences.
Although Cubic officials declined to be interviewed, email sent by the company said there were 38,000 calls to its customer service hot line in August.
“The fact that 99.7 percent of transactions did not require interaction with Cubic customer service representatives suggests a successful system,” Matt Newsome, a Cubic vice president, said in a statement.
But that math obscures the truth: transactions (500,000 daily, 14 million monthly) do not equal passengers. Each leg of a journey counts as a transaction. A weekday round-trip BART to Muni transfer, for example, counts as four transactions a day (two BART transactions, two Muni transactions), 84 a month. Officials said it was too difficult to determine how many passengers regularly used the card, but it is clear that far more than 0.3 percent of passengers are complaining.
Sam Jennings, who commutes daily between Oakland and San Francisco, said that his card had failed on several occasions, but that when he called customer service, the problems were rarely resolved.
“I turned to Twitter, wondering if I was alone,” Jennings said.
There he discovered a litany of angry postings, leading him to start a Twitter group, @ClipperSUCKS, dedicated to Clipper disdain. Here's one of the recent postings:
Similar online discussions are also on Yelp.
Poor functioning or overcharging are common complaints.
On Caltrain, for example, trips have time limits. But when trains are halted for hours due to track fatalities (12 so far in 2011) Clipper passengers can be charged the route’s maximum fare, punished as if they were joy riding.
On San Francisco’s Muni, electrical irregularities regularly crash Clipper card scanners, requiring several minutes to reboot. Passengers, unable to swipe their cards, said they were then accused by fare inspectors of failing to pay.
Sarah Sosiak, who commutes from Cole Valley to downtown, said she had lost at least $80 on a Clipper card that failed to work. Unable to resolve the matter, she paid for additional fares.
“On my list of reasons for not continuing to live in San Francisco is dealing with Muni,” Sosiak said.
Clipper’s cashless system was also supposed to increase Muni efficiency by reducing time taken collecting fares. But Muni’s on-time performance has actually declined in recent months.
Scott Wiener, a San Francisco city supervisor who uses Clipper daily and serves as a commissioner with the transportation agency, acknowledged some rocky initial moments, but said that London’s mass transit made the same switch years ago to a system also by Cubic, which is now wildly popular.
“Integrating so many transit agencies is going to be complicated,” Wiener said, but “progress is being made.”
A version of this article also appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.
Doug
I commute mid peninsula using Caltrain and VTA and have used the clipper card since it started. Autoload and credit card auto renewal are broken. For the previous 3 months the system had been unable to change a new expiry date. I would be informed by email about mid month that my card was not funded not knowing I was being charged for each VTA ride (2 zone monthly pass covers all VTA rides when valid) nor able to tell if I was riding without a valid card until onboard the CalTrain and approaching the conductor to check my status. I have been overcharged each month for three months now. I await the dreaded email from clipper now that it is mid month again. There is no way to tell boarding VTA if a monthly card is valid and if I am being charged extra. Each time they fail I pay.
Stitch_94133
I recently had a credit card on file with Clipper expire and rather than tell me or even allow me to use the $12 that was still on the card they just blocked it which I didn't know until I saw a large "BLOCKED CARD" on the MUNI transponder.
I updated the card, which took forever. But what I really don't understand is why when I directly entered the information into the system it still took 6 days for it to be validated and usable again.
I can put a credit card into Amazon and have my book the next day.
MTA and Clipper should be investigated for this obvious boondoggle.
More great reporting Scott, keep up the great work.
Rose Roll
I had the same experience - it took 10 days for Clipper to update my credit card on file. Plus, about 20% of the time the card reader isn't working on the MUNI, so no one pays. Someone should count up all the lost revenue on MUNI because of dysfunctional clipper cards!
Eric Brooks
None of these nonsensical problems would be a problem at all, if the system simply charged a flat monthly or yearly one-time fee for unlimited use throughout the system like the Europass (similar to unlimited cellphone or internet service) and subsidized the passes of low income riders.
This would also be a good first step to phasing in free universal transit.
Erik X
Part of the problem is a massive failure of industrial design visible in the use of the word "swipe" several times in the first few paragraphs here. They took an object shaped like a credit card which people have spent the last three decades learning to swipe quickly and smoothly through a reader and used it on a system that doesn't work well when you swipe the card over the reader.
This particular card works a lot better if you hold it still against the reader for a few seconds. Swiping the card over the reader or tapping it quickly against the reader often doesn't give the machine time to read it and results in the dreaded failure beep.
Dave Dee
Unfortunately MTC has failed in its leadership of the Clipper Card program. Instead of forcing the Bay Area's 2-dozen-plus transit agencies to simplify their fare and transfer policies, it simply attempted to integrate the existing fare and transfer systems. Many of the problems users have with being overcharged (seemingly never undercharged) would not happen if Clipper handled fare payments, transfer permissions, and discounts similarly for everybody.
For example, as a casual user of BART and AC Transit, I have to maintain 2 pots of money on my Clipper Card. My credit union reissued credit cards earlier this year, and I had to change my BART Autoload as a result. After updating my account information on the website and making 3 subsequent phone calls, my BART Autoload was *finally* updated. During that time my BART value ran down to zero, and without my knowledge my e-cash was drained to a negative balance. In fact, I did not discover that the BART Autoload had not been fixed and that I was carrying a negative balance until I couldn't get through the fare gate.
If I could simply carry a single pot of money on my card--like one can in the London example--and if updating my account information on the website actually worked, I would not have encountered any aggravation. My experience was such a hassle that it scared off my friends from making the switch from paper BART tickets. Is that what MTC wants?
MJP
Having traveled frequently in Europe, all I can say is that just about everything in this country regarding mass transit is messed up. I'm at a loss to explain why we aren't able to get people where they want to go quickly and conveniently.
Randy Hees
I am not a regular transit rider, but have a clipper card… I also have had a similar Metro card from Washington DC for several years…
I like the Metro card… it works well.
I dislike the Clipper card. It is confusing, requiring different actions on each transit system. (I just scan in on Muni, but have to scan in on Caltrain then remember to scan out… on Bart I scan in and out at fare gates… at least that is logical and similar to the old fare card) The card didn’t originally work on cable cars (I understand that has been fixed)… I can ride BART, but not pay for BART parking... In DC I pay for parking with the card... Most stations don’t have a way to add value to the card…
Washington DC shows that the system can work…
Mark Ferree
I laughed out loud at Wiener's comment about London.
Just so happens I just returned from London where I attempted to apply 20 pounds cash to an Oyster card which never showed up on the card itself. Spoke to several employees at shops that sell these cards and they all said never to add value from the machines. I then spent a couple hours on the phone getting shuttled from one vendor to another before giving up on a refund. I wondered why it all seemed so Clipperesque.
In my experience London's system isn't any better after several years to apply fixes. I'm not holding my breath for my long line of frustrating experiences with Clipper to improve any time soon.
James Casey
I've used the system since 2007 and the days of Translink. On MUNI, BART, Golden Gate Transit I've only once had a problem with and reader not picking up my card and charging it correctly. Then again, I've always been careful to "tag" the reader so that the card can actually be read and not to swipe it.
Maybe something went wrong during the transition from Translink to Clipper? I've heard rumors that the old Translink cards, for whatever reason, are actually better at "tagging" in and out. That being said, it's silly to not be able to pay for BART parking with Clipper/Translink.
Erica S.
My daughter & I both use Clipper Cards and have never experienced any problems whatsoever with them. She's been using hers for about 6 months, and I've had mine for a couple of years. We each ride a few times a week - AC Transit bus & BART.
I love them!
Sean Nolan
I'd love to know how you have used yours for a couple of years, as they were rolled out June 2010, meaning a year and 3 months is the longest you could have used it.
Sean Nolan
My favorite issue I've ever had with Clipper, and there have been several - I do not ride enough to justify a monthly pass, so I buy $20 in cash on the card and refill when it runs low. Well, apparently you have two options when purchasing this way for Clipper - you can put $20 cash on it, usable in any venue that Clipper is set up for, or you can buy $20 worth of MUNI-ONLY rides. Not knowing there were two different setups, I accidentally purchased the MUNI-only rides (10 rides, $2 each) and was thereafter unable to get a refund or change this back to the $20 cash equivalency, which was what I wanted, since I rode BART far more than MUNI.
What I fail to understand is, what the heck is the purpose of having a limited use option, that costs exactly the same as the non-limited use option? $20 would get me 10 MUNI rides regardless of whether they are in cash, cash-equivalency, or the MUNI rides option, so why do they offer the rides-only option? The answer I was given by Clipper's highly impolite customer service was, "Because MUNI wants it that way and we sell what MUNI wants us to sell on the card."
voltairesmistress
Could Clipper institute what the Fastrak (car tolls on Bay Area Bridges) system does? You can choose an automatic re-loading function on Fastrak. When you get down below $25 dollars, the system automatically bills your credit card for an advance of cash. Each month you receive an e-mailed statement of tolls and cash added, as well as notification of whether your credit card expiration date is nearing. Painless not having to remember to load up a card.
Lil Mike
Problems... there are many...
My biggest overall problem with these cards is that the fare payment amount is not controlled by the consumer. I just wish i could approve the transaction so that when I ride AC Transit for a local ride in the East Bay I am not charged double for the Trans Bay Fare to San Francisco, which happens to me weekly.
Having a system where the auto-fare is controlled by a less than concerned or considerate driver, and then forcing me to deal with a separate company for customer service to get a refund credit is complete and utter BULL$HIT.
Christian Hoffert
Contact Rosemary Rentschler at the Metropolitan Transit Commission 510-817-5916 with your Clipper problems or complaints. The MTC made the decision to go with Cubic's garbage system and they should hear our displeasure loud and clear!
Mike Reade
I have the same Translink card that I got in early 2010 and I am generally happy. It beats having to find change and the assurance that you can replace your card if you loose it is nice. Ive heard rumors the Translink is stronger signal too, but havent seen anything conclusive. That said, the problems you are describe are an extension of the crazy problems with MUNI and public transport in SF:
1) The Clipper scanners dont work half the time - loosing money on many busy buses
2) The buses and trains that never come and are filthy
3) The lazy drivers that turn a blind eye to fare evaders and let the homeless ride free (27 bus-Im looking at you)
4) The scheduling and sequence of trains in the line (4 N's in a row, then none for 35 minutes - wtf??)
5) Those MUNI fare inspectors that should be focused out in the J, T and N lines - where people can enter the system outside of the stations.
Why cant we have the efficiency of much larger cities, like Boston or NY?