Superlinx

[plam]

I thought that was the vision behind PRESTO (implementation, of course, being a whole other story).

VIA's a bit tricky in that you buy tickets in advance. But there's no reason such a thing shouldn't exist otherwise.

Right.  But we don't have PRESTO -- are we the only ones to reject it?

You could still allow on-the-spot VIA purchases using PRESTO (or similar system), the pre-purchased paper tickets would work in parallel.  It's the same in Japan, you can purchase paper tickets or use your SUICA/PASMO.

My impression is that Ontario basically strongarmed many GTHA agencies + OC Transpo into using PRESTO. Presto's Wikipedia page contains the list of agencies using it and not using it. Guelph doesn't use it.

On-the-spot VIA purchases are super expensive. They've moved towards dynamic (airline-style) pricing. You could pay on the spot but you probably don't want to. This is not like Swiss railway tickets where you don't need to buy ahead of time.