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NYCTA/MTA fareboxes
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 11:48 pm    Post subject: NYCTA/MTA fareboxes Reply with quote

Fellows:

Just curious as to how many types of fareboxes have been used by the NYCTA and today's MTA.

A few questions:

When did bus fareboxes stop accepting tokens?

When did the MTA first use "electronic" registers?

What typ of register is used today (are coins still accepted or is it now METROCARD only?)

As I am not from New York (and have not ridden on a New York bus since 1985), I have been curious about this for some time.

Thanks for any info......

"NYO"
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frankie



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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 1:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A little information is better than none and it's a start for you to compile a listing from observing various fareboxes.

I suggest you "image" google "New York City fare boxes" or variations of it and figure out some timelines just from the information such as fare prices of the various examples shown.

You can always fill in the blanks with time and input from other members of this forum.

Frankie
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

frankie wrote:
A little information is better than none and it's a start for you to compile a listing from observing various fareboxes.

I suggest you "image" google "New York City fare boxes" or variations of it and figure out some timelines just from the information such as fare prices of the various examples shown.

You can always fill in the blanks with time and input from other members of this forum.

Frankie


Frankie:

Thanks....it's a start, at least! Wink

Being from New Jersey, I am not at all familiar with New York bus fare boxes; for many years, the ones I knew best were the old glass-topped Johnson models (which were old even when I was growing up) and those big NCR ticket machines, used by PSNJ and other private suburban carriers for ages.......

"NYO"
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N4 Jamaica




Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 858
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 4:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's been four years since I have been on an MTA local bus, but at that time the major hassle was that currency was not accepted. The fare is $2.75. Tourists boarding a local bus would discover they needed that in coins, eleven quarters for example! Therefore, when I instruct tourists about local bus usage, I say "Get a Metrocard" and put money on it. With that Metrocard, you will have little problem with fareboxes and you will get amazing free transfers that allow you to double-back your trip, using bus one way and subway the other. Transfers expire in two hours, 18 minutes.
---
It's sometimes hard to find a place selling Metrocards, especially in the no-subway neighborhoods of the outer boroughs.
---
Each of the two types of Metrocards (pay-per-ride and unlimited) has is own problems. If your group consists of up to four people, they can share a pay-per-ride card, but one swipe for a transfer uses all the free transfers on the card. The #1 problem with an Unlimited Metrocard is that a bad swipe on a dirty subway turnstile reader will lock you out of the system for 18 minutes.
---
Now, as for senior tourists riding a bus, just drop $1.35 in the box request a paper transfer (valid only on a bus within 2 hours), and move to your seat. Operators seldom check for senior ID.
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 4:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

N4:

Appreciate this info; this is all new to me.....thanks! Very Happy

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I would still prefer to use a token (the same goes for subway rides); drop one token into the fare box or into a turnstile slot...VOILA! Shocked

When I was still working downtown, I continued to use tokens for the subway right up until the very last day that they were accepted; I always carried an old change purse to hold my supply of tokens (I always bought a ten-pack or two)

Here in NJ, at one time (before my time) PSNJ used tokens for streetcars, ASV's, and buses.

In my area, I remember all the local "indy" companies using the old, time-honored Johnson fare boxes, and the bulky NCR registers when riding PSNJ or other private carrier routes.

To me, the more "hi tech" an apparatus is, the more complex (and expensive) are the repairs.

For example, you did not need a NASA-qualified computer tech to work on an old Johnson box........ Rolling Eyes

Time flies........

"NYO"
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 4:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's an interesting link.......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fare
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 4:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The story of the timeless (and once-oh-so-familiar) Johnson fare box*.......

http://www.johnsonfarebox.com

*a number of nostalgic photos here!
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N4 Jamaica




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PostPosted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 1:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One more warning about the use of Metrocards on buses: Only one of the four ways you insert the card in the farebox will work. Get used to the proper insert method as depicted on the farebox itself. If you insert the card in one of the three wrong directions, you get a buzz. The operator might take the card from your wavering hands and insert it correctly. The farebox then takes the card down into the slot completely, reads it, and returns it back up. Even that procedure takes time and compounds the problem of slow loading.
---
Boarding is a slow process on New York City buses because it is not a tap system (as the Charlie Card in Boston). Even flipping coins into the coin slot is quicker than inserting the Metrocard correctly and awaiting its return. For several years, the NJT flash pass was quicker than any farebox.
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 4:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

N4 Jamaica wrote:
One more warning about the use of Metrocards on buses: Only one of the four ways you insert the card in the farebox will work. Get used to the proper insert method as depicted on the farebox itself. If you insert the card in one of the three wrong directions, you get a buzz. The operator might take the card from your wavering hands and insert it correctly. The farebox then takes the card down into the slot completely, reads it, and returns it back up. Even that procedure takes time and compounds the problem of slow loading.
---
Boarding is a slow process on New York City buses because it is not a tap system (as the Charlie Card in Boston). Even flipping coins into the coin slot is quicker than inserting the Metrocard correctly and awaiting its return. For several years, the NJT flash pass was quicker than any farebox.


N4:

Thanks for this info; Aaaahhh, the infinite joys of "hi tech" fare collection!

As I had stated earlier, it was just so much simpler to drop tokens or coins into a "regular" farebox; no worries about the right or wrong ways to insert tokens or coins into the box!

IMHO, just because we live in the 21st century (which was portrayed as being a lot more fun in "The Jetsons" and at the '64 World's Fair!) doesn't mean EVERYTHING has to be ultra-electronic, ultra-computerized, ultra-hi-tech.

You now can program appliances to switch on and off from great distances, tweet, twitter, and text, watch your favorite programs on your phone.........but, at what expense?

I truly feel that "hi tech" has made MORE stress for the average "man on the street" instead of LESS.

Back to fare boxes; I've recently read discussion on why so many "standard" transit buses in Europe and Asia have three doors, and foreign articulateds often having having four sets of doors (this door arrangement, interestingly, goes back many years overseas)

It was said that the "proof of payment of fare"system is very popular overseas, and seems to work quite well, in most instances.

Of course, NO method of fare collection (like anything else) is NEVER 100% foolproof, but, IMHO, I think we have gotten a little too far ahead of the game, in this instance.......

"NYO"

*Recall, also, the time when the "exact change" policies began to become commonplace; the murder of a BTC bus driver in Baltimore in the late 1960's was the main reason why Baltimore implemented an "exact change" policy on its buses.

I well remember the signs on many buses reading:

"EXACT CHANGE ONLY. DRIVER CARRIES NO MONEY."

Sadly, the sign of the times......
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 5:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Intergrated ticketing.......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/integrated_ticketing
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 5:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interestingly, London's buses never used ("American-style") fare boxes; for many decades, conductors sold tickets to passengers on board.

During the First World War, female conductoresses were employed to make up for the manpower shortage; they were known as "clippies".

In London, a ticket was issued as a payment reciept; from the earliest motor-bus days, tickets were printed in different colors to indicate their different "values" in pennies, and conductors carried them about in a neat rack with spring clips.

On each ticket there was a pre-printed list of key stops along the route; the conductor carried a punch that clipped a piece of the ticket out, indicating where the passenger had boarded.

Various types of punches were used until the 1950's; these were replaced beginning in 1953 by the Gibson Ticket Machine, which allowed the conductor to print out tickets on a paper roll ( I am most fortunate to have an old "Gibson" in my collection today)

This proved both quicker and cheaper than the earlier methods.

GREEN LINE suburban coaches, however, used different machines.

New ticket-issuing machines followed changes in London's fare structure by the 1990's, but, not long afterwards, a new system was introduced to speed up boarding, and now passengers had to buy tickets at a machine at the bus stop before boarding.

The famous "ROUTEMASTER" was the last bus designed for London that required a conductor; today; all buses are "one-man"...........

"NYO"

*Back in the olden days, the "GENERAL"/LT issued more than 5,000,000 tickets a day from one department at Chiswick Works; this massive operation was staffed by over 300 women, using a complex network of conveyor belts and pneumatic message tubes.

A fleet of company's vans brought in and took out the conductor's boxes to the garages, 9,000 of them.

No less than 450 million tickets were kept in stock, weighing over 200 tons.......(!!)

"Blimey, mate! 'ere's a real bloomin' go!" Shocked

"NYO"

Source:

"LONDON BUSES BETWEEN THE WARS" (Robbins/Thomas)

"THE LONDON BUS" (Taylor)
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W.B. Fishbowl



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PostPosted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 8:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In the last years of Fifth Avenue Coach Lines operation of the bulk of Manhattan bus routes, they had Grant Electrofarer fare boxes installed on their buses. What I can't say is whether they were replaced by the earlier Johnson fare boxes (as opposed to the types familiar to those who rode the buses in the '70's) at the point MaBSTOA took over.
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 9:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

W.B. Fishbowl wrote:
In the last years of Fifth Avenue Coach Lines operation of the bulk of Manhattan bus routes, they had Grant Electrofarer fare boxes installed on their buses. What I can't say is whether they were replaced by the earlier Johnson fare boxes (as opposed to the types familiar to those who rode the buses in the '70's) at the point MaBSTOA took over.


W.B.:

This is very interesting; I never heard of the "Electrofarer" registers; I have always wondered if, as the FACCo "open toppers" carried conductors, if overhead OHMER fare registers were used (these were very common on two-man streetcars for many years)........

"NYO"
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 9:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

See also.......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohmer_fare_register
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 9:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In an earlier post, I mentioned the now-redundant "Gibson" ticket machine that was used on London Transport buses for many years, beginning in 1953.

This now-retired machine was far different from anything used in New York (or elsewhere in the States, for that matter)...........

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/gibson_ticket_machine
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