In my last post, The Friday Rush, I proposed that we work with universities and colleges within GO Transit’s service area to give students PRESTO cards. Outside of Toronto and its inner suburbs, most university and college students receive a local transit pass as part of their tuition, but giving them the same discount on a PRESTO card allows students to save money on out-of-town travel as well. In addition to the benefits that the transit agency will see, this will nearly eliminate the cascading delays GO experiences every Friday when students attempt to purchase tickets on board the bus instead of from the ticket counter.

After some offline discussion amongst friends and colleagues, I would like to throw this question out to the world:

Whereas giving riders PRESTO cards will result in much higher instances of use and re-use than if riders are required to seek out and purchase the cards, would it be a good policy decision to replace single-ride GO tickets entirely with pre-loaded, pre-activated PRESTO cards?