GO Transit to give $100 Presto credit to each passenger stuck on train
'It doesn’t eliminate what happened last night,' Metrolinx spokesperson says
GO Transit says it will give $100 credit to each passenger stuck on a rush-hour Lakeshore East express train for over three hours on Tuesday.
The credit will be uploaded to each passenger's electronic Presto fare card. It could take two to five days for passengers to see the credit on their Presto cards and it could take 12 hours to get the e-mail from Presto about the compensation, Metrolinx says.
The train suffered a complete breakdown after it left Ajax Station, and with about 600 people on board, it sat stationary on the tracks without power or air-conditioning.
"If you got stuck on that train and got stranded for the three, four hours, we want to compensate you for that," Metrolinx spokeswoman Anne Marie Aikins said Wednesday night.
GO Transit has a service guarantee that will reimburse a customer's fare if his or her train is more than 15 minutes late and if GO Transit is to blame for the delay.
Aikins said Tuesday's delay goes beyond its normal service guarantee and that it is looking for a fair amount to compensate all of the passengers who were stuck on the train.
"We have been looking at, all day, at a fair amount to compensate. It doesn't eliminate what happened last night," she said. "It will probably take us about 24 hours to communicate with them all and provide them with a little bit of compensation."
Aikins said GO Transit knows who was on that train because most of its customers use the Presto card and passengers don't need to do anything to get compensated for the delay.
"They don't have to prove anything. The money will go right back onto their Presto card as a small token to say how sorry we are and how we appreciate that they are our customer," Aikins said.