I’ve been dazzled by the pizzazz of the new B.C. Transit almost-ready-for-primetime Umo phone app to pay for bus fare in Greater Victoria. It glows, it flashes a QR code for the fare scanner, it allows me to buy transit fares without interacting with another human.
But a much more practical colleague has a different approach. She’s saving money by buying the old-fashioned discounted sheets of bus tickets in volume. It’s $22.50 for a sheet of 10 tickets, each of them a $2.50 value, a 10% discount. So, a ride costs $2.25 instead of $2.50, and a day pass is $4.50 (pay with 2 tickets) instead of $5.
Volume discounting is not available on the new Umo fare system.
My colleague plans to stick with the discounted paper tickets until she has no choice. B.C. Transit has not announced an end-date for paper tickets, but it's looking like it might happen by the end of this year.
(As a reader points out, there's also the option of buying a 30-day pass or monthly pass if you are a very frequent bus rider. Fare details on B.C. Transit's website.)
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In using the new Umo app and its companion tap card, I’ve noticed these things.
If you go touring on the Umo app, searching for bus times, for example, getting back to the QR code screen to pay for your fare can be perplexing. I’ve noticed people struggling with this several times. They’ve launched their Umo app, ready to be good bus citizens who don’t hold up the line, but they want to double check the arrival time and route. Then the bus arrives. How do you get back to the QR code that you need to pay your fare? If you haven’t wandered far from the home screen, you can press the Wallet icon. But if you go a few screens deeper, the Wallet icon disappears, and there’s only a back arrow that you have to press multiple times.
My solution to quickly get back to the home screen with minimal fuss is to quit the app and relaunch it. On an iPhone 13, you do this by sliding your thumb halfway up the screen while Umo is running. This takes you to the quit apps function. You flick the Umo image up. And then you relaunch app.
[This problem has been addressed with an updated version of the Umo app, which now has a constant button at the bottom of the screen to take you directly to the QR code. But the new app has introduced a new problem: It signs people out. I've found that I have to repeatedly sign back in. Not a good last-minute discovery when you board and try to pay your fare.]
You can avoid all this by using the Umo tap card.
If you’re using the smartphone app, after paying for your fare with Umo, you get a message advising that you have transfer rights. In B.C. Transit’s Greater Victoria system, this is not true. If you get on a second bus the same day, you’ll be charged another fare. But that second fare converts to a day pass. You won’t be charged any more fares for the rest of the day. B.C. Transit says that message appears because it’s using an all-purpose app. Some of its other systems provide transfers, so that message is there for them, not for us.
Based on my monitoring of what people do when they board, a majority of people paying their fare via Umo are doing so with the phone app, not the tap card, even though the card is less of a hassle to use.
Card: Take out of purse or pocket, tap card reader.
Phone app: Make sure phone has battery life, turn on phone, navigate to Umo app, tap Umo app, go to QR code screen, aim the QR code just so at the code reader.
I have three theories for why this happening.
1. People love their phones. They prefer the phone for a task to any alternative.
2. The phone is always at hand. Finding the Umo card amid a jumble of cards is inconvenient.
3. You have to go to a store to get a Umo card. With the Umo app, there’s no need to get off the sofa, no need to find a Umo card merchant, no need to stand in line.
And here are some tapping discoveries.
When using a Umo tap card, don’t tap at where it says “tap here.” Tap slightly above the “tap here.”
When using the Umo app, after getting your QR fare code to appear, hold your phone screen parallel to the scanner screen (it seems to wince at tilting) and with the top of the phone just below the top of the scanner screen. And hope that the OK beep goes off.
On a lot of rides, Umo users are still in the minority. In that minority, the vast majority are using the phone app, not the card.
Bus drivers have been super nice with people who struggle with the new fare system.
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I wrote about the basics of the new Umo system in an earlier article.
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