Transit Agency Makes Riders Watch an Advertisement Before Buying Tickets

At least one person has missed a train after being forced to watch an advertisement before buying a ticket on the SEPTA transit system in Philadelphia.

Here to report that you now have to click through ADVERTISEMENTS before you can purchase SEPTA Key fare at least at the kiosk at Walnut-Locust. Yes, I missed my train. Yes, I’m mad.

— BSL stan account (@gumball_eyes) May 6, 2019

David Murrell that SEPTA "has started putting advertisements on fare kiosk displays, which you have no choice but to click through in order to purchase your ticket."

Murrell notes that the transit agency has a reason for resorting to such potentially "nefarious" means: it's up to its neck in risk, "on account of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, one of its biggest funders, being billions of dollars in debt."

As for the potentially nefariousness of the advertisement, there's the slow and frustrating user experience of the fare kiosk, which some users and even employees of the system admit are already slow. But there's also the ethical questions raised about forcing users of a public transit system to watch an advertisement to use the system.