The Clipper Card
On Aug 3rd 2010, I obtained two free Clipper cards from the local Walgreens store on my way back home from work. I added $20 to one of them to try it out. The Clipper card is a simple debit card that combines the payment and pass systems of all the transit systems in San Francisco and surrounding areas into one easy-to-use plastic card. This service is quite similar to the Oyster card used for transport in London, UK.
I like the clipper card since it's a great technical solution to a real-world problem. In fact, the solution is not just technical in nature, but socio-technical. The adoption of the clipper card by transit users involves training people and bus drivers on how to use it, providing customer support in non-English languages, and managing staffing to deal with complaints if any.
The key advantages of the clipper card are:
- You just need one card for almost all forms of public transit. The clipper card covers the Muni buses, the Muni metro, the BART subway, Caltrain, and the Golden Gate ferry. You can also use it on the AC transit, but I've never taken that before.
- The clipper card looks and feels like a proper credit card. This makes it a LOT harder to lose or tear unlike the paper passes/tickets issued by individual transit companies like the BART.
- The clipper card is RFID-equipped which means I don't have to take it out of my wallet/purse to tag it. I just scan my entire wallet. This makes the card even harder to lose/tear since I rarely see or touch the card.
- I can view all my trips online and download/document my transit activity.
- I can load funds into my account online. This is a big win for me.
- I can configure the system to auto load funds to my account whenever it goes below $10. I just configured this yesterday. Let's see how it works! Now I don't have to ever worry about having money to take the transit.
- I don't have to carry cash/change around all the time. This way you won't lose your change on the Muni if you only have a $5 bill for a $2 ticket.
- The easier the authorities make it to spend, the more likely people are
to spend. When people got credit cards, it made them spend more since
spending was now so much easier with a card. No need to carry around cash, no
need to count cash, and no need to count change.
Similarly, if people spend more on public transit, they're less likely to take their cars around for everything which has its own set of benefits. Also, the individual transit companies benefit from the increased revenue which they hopefully re-invest into more lines and also more frequent lines on evenings and weekends.
The main disadvantages of the clipper card are:
- If you forget to tag off your Clipper card on your way out of the
Caltrain station, you could end up losing a lot of money. This is because the
Caltrain does not have turnstiles on exit, and so the system has to charge
you the maximum amount possible and then refund you the part that you didn't
travel on depending on how many zones you actually traveled. This loss is
highest if you start your journey from either Zone 1 (very likely for me) or
Zone 6 (not so likely for me).
To help me remember to tag off, I look up the caltrain schedule beforehand or during transit in the Caltrain, and find out the arrival time of the train. I then set myself an alarm on my phone to go off at that time plus one minute. Caltrains usually arrive on time, so this solution works pretty well.
- You tend to spend more if it becomes easier to spend, much like a credit card.
- You lose out on "accidental exercise" since it's so easy to take public transit now. You should really be walking short distances instead of taking the Muni/BART for just 1 or 2 stops.
Some suggestions for improving the overall clipper experience:
- Have a "remember me on this computer" checkbox on the login screen that makes you have to login only every 7 days. This checkbox should be unchecked by default.
- The "transaction history" page should show the transactions as a HTML table right on the page, with an option to export to CSV and PDF. Right now, it only display as PDF which is annoying.
- When showing card activity as HTML, it should show ALL items but with pagination limiting the page to about 20 or 30 lines per page.
The Clipper card is a great service for people like me who do not own cars and therefore take public transit quite a bit. Order your card online now.
Why I Like Travel
Some people travel because it's a break from their normal flow of life.
Some people travel because they like to expose themselves to new places, new food, and new cultures.
Some people like to travel because it makes other people feel jealous.
Some people like to travel for the sake of traveling. Just because they can.
But recently I realized that I like to travel not for any of the above reasons but because I like feeling lost. I like the discomforting feeling of not knowing where I am. I like having to figure things out by looking at a map. I like not knowing where I'm going to be having lunch or dinner until it's time for lunch or dinner. I like losing track of time and not knowing the day of the month or the week of the day. In short, I like not having an agenda.
I actually like maps a lot. So much that I once considered becoming a cartographer. That explains why I like spending so much time on Google Maps. There was once a time in 2006 when I used to spend more time on Google Maps than on Facebook. And on every Google interview I've had, when the interviewer would ask me what team I'd like to be on, I'd instantly reply "the maps team!"
The other reason I enjoy traveling is because I like it when I have no idea what people around me are talking about. I guess this is a feeling I'm really used to having grown up in Dubai. Everywhere I went in Dubai, people around me used to speak in Arabic, Malayalam and Sindhi, none of which languages I actually have any knowledge of.
So I guess I can't really tell people I like traveling. It would be more appropriate of me to tell people that I like visiting foreign places instead. Because visiting foreign places puts me outside my comfort zone. Except this means that I wouldn't want to spend more than 2-3 days in any city while traveling since after that I will have accustomed myself to the city, figured out my bearings, and figured out the public transit system. At which point things get boring quite quickly.
That's why I'm glad that when we went on our tour of Europe this summer, we only stayed in each city for a maximum of 2.5 days. Constantly changing cities every third day was fun. And by the end of the trip we got really good at figuring out new cities, really good at reading maps, and really good at figuring out how the public transit system worked.
There's nothing like being lost in a random city half-way across the world where everyone speaks a language you don't. And that is the true experience I get from traveling.
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What's happened in the past year reverse chronologically?
- Moved to SF: Permanently moved to San Francisco, California to start my new full time position at Zynga Games, Jul 5 '10.
- Headed to Europe! Will be headed on a whirlwind Europe tour for 2 months, Apr 26 '10. Join this facebook group for updates and photos.
- Found a job! Got employed as full-time Software Engineer by Zynga Games Inc., Dec 16 '09.
- California Interviews: Headed to California for on-site interviews with Zynga, Heyzap and Facebook, 5 Nov '09.
- Back at Waterloo!: Commenced my 4A term, Sep 12 2009. Just another 8-month stretch to get through, then I'm done with University!
- UW Daily Bulletin Feature: My blog post "The Case for Waterloo" got featured on Waterloo's Daily Bulletin! 14 Aug '09.
- Share in Google Reader: Reader is becoming very popular, so now you can share my posts in Google Reader directly. Look for the "share" link at the bottom of each post! 9 Jun '09.
- Vancouver: Headed to Vancouver, BC to relax (!) for a long weekend, Jun 4 '09.
- Contact: New contact page! May 26 2009.
- Continue at Tagged: Going to be at Tagged Inc. for another 4-month term, May 2 2009.
- Tagged: Started work at Tagged Inc. in San Francisco, Jan 4 2009.
