ASU students and employees should be able to board the light rail now that a problem earlier this month in the system has been fixed, Metro officials said.
U-Pass cards that had been issued to ASU students and employees were not being accepted at the tap card readers at all Metro stations, said Hillary Foose, public information officer for Metro light rail.
Metro investigated the issue and concluded that there were software modifications that were needed, Foose said.
“We have recently done some software upgrades to those machines, so hopefully you see that it does begin to work for all passes,” she said. “Hopefully it [the problems] doesn’t occur to the degree that [they] might have occurred initially.”
The software upgrades were completed last week and the machines should read the passes as they did when the light rail first opened, Foose said.
The problem did not seem to affect a large number of students because it occurred before most students returned for the semester, Foose said.
Additionally, she said, students, faculty and staff who use the U-Pass should know they need only to tap their card with each boarding.
“Some people think that when they tap it something is going to spit out at them, like a receipt of some kind, and that’s not the case,” Foose said.
Some people tap the card too fast, which causes the machine to not read it, Foose said.
“There’s a chip in the card, and that sensor on the pad needs time to sense the chip in the card, so when you tap it too fast, it’s not able to sense that chip.”
Foose said Valley Metro suggests riders tap the card slowly, to make sure a connection occurs. If there are any issues, Foose suggested letting personnel know or calling the customer-service line so maintenance can get out to address the issue.
Shereen Saurey, communications coordinator for ASU Parking & Transit Services, said the glitch in the tap-card reading system had nothing to do with the cards issued to students.
“The U-Pass we distributed to students and employees have indeed been valid and have been legitimate to use on the light rail, so it certainly wasn’t an issue with the cards,” Saurey said.
The light rail opened on Dec. 27, servicing passengers from Phoenix to Mesa.
Mechanical engineering freshman Andrew Latimer said he did not experience difficulties with the tap card machine when he rode the light rail from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport to Tempe on Sunday, but he said he waited for about an hour for a train to come, and when one finally did, it was not in service.
“It’s annoying and inconvenient, but since it’s only been running a few weeks, I’m not going to discount it,” Latimer said.
Reach the reporter at brianna.mattox@asu.edu.
