TORONTO

It seems Presto can’t handle Canadian winters.

For the majority of the week, the Greater Toronto Area has been in a deep freeze with lows hovering in the -25C range. The dipping mercury has been impacting screens on some outdoor Presto transit fare card machines as well as the speaker volume, according to an e-mail GO Transit sent to its customers Thursday.

“It just makes me shake my head that Metrolinx would install machines outdoors that can’t take the cold of a Canadian winter, especially with all the money spent on Presto,” said one commuter named Jane, who did not wish to use her last name.

“Also, some of the machines are in a very poor location logistically. In the morning at the base of the tunnel in Whitby, trying to get to the machine to ‘tap’ I feel like I am crossing the 401 at rush hour.”

While Presto is still being rolled out to different transit authorities in the GTA, the price tag of the system has already ballooned to $700 million, with a full implementation expected by 2016 on all systems.

In the e-mail, GO Transit assured riders its “tap” payment would be accepted as long as they saw a green light indicator above the display.

Metrolinx said Friday the issue was isolated to a few outside locations throughout the GTA (but none in Toronto) and was during the early morning hours of Thursday “when it was particularly bitter and windy.”

“The machines are built to withstand -30C weather,” spokesman Anne Marie Aikins said. “There hasn’t been a problem before. They have built-in heaters to help them from freezing. It could be the exposure to wind causing a wind chill.

“We will make every effort to ensure it doesn’t happen again and new machines coming out are built by the manufacturer to withstand even colder temperatures.”

Toronto Taxpayers Coalition president Matthew McGuire called the glitch another example of government inability to properly manage products.

“Presto is already a billion-dollar boondoggle, and now we’re finding out the system breaks down during Canadian winter,” he said.

“The cost of Presto is already three times higher than initial estimates. How much more will fixing these issues cost taxpayers?”

Daniel Hammond, a Transport Action Ontario board member, said Presto is using cold weather as an “excuse” for shoddy workmanship.

“The provincial government is not doing their due diligence in (forcing) the vendor (Accenture) to either perform or not be paid,” he said. “Durham still doesn’t have Presto operating properly. If the fare system fails, the rider is subject to a fine.”

Metrolinx is currently looking at the confirmed locations of screen and speaker issues and examining the reasons why it might have happened.

“We sent the message to reassure customers that their taps were captured correctly,” Aikins said. “We’ll be looking into how to improve the audio and screen readouts during extreme cold weather.”