The “root cause” of Ottawa’s Presto card problems appears to be fixed, the City of Ottawa and province's public transit body said Friday.
OC Transpo head John Manconi said he’s “cautiously optimistic” that widespread technical glitches which pushed back the $32 million payment system’s July launch date have been fixed.
Metrolinx, the province's body in charge of public transit, said their testing shows 95 per cent of test swipes end in a completed transaction.
“All issues with bus devices have been resolved and there has been a steady increase in the number of complete transactions,” said Metrolinx president Bruce McCuaig at the city’s transit commission meeting.
There are currently 2,000 people helping test the system, with the target date for a full launch still Feb. 2013.
City councillors said they'll wait until the next update in the fall before they feel in the clear.
"When they come back in the fall, those answer have to be there," said Keith Egli. "We're getting to the fish or cut bait point if we're going to roll it out in February."
McCuaig said Metrolinx is now focusing on installing the rest of its card readers, as they stopped installing them when problems started to appear.
They'll also be covering OC Transpo's $4 million to $7 million tab for the delays.
With a report from CTV Ottawa’s Vanessa Lee
