ttc metropass colours

(Apparently I’m a bit more ill than I had originally thought.)

I wanted to make an observation on the TTC monthly Metropass and the colours they choose to use on it. Earlier this year, brown was one of the dominant colours on the card for two months in a row; I don’t remember if these were February/March, or March/April. In any case, the first few days of the second month with a brown card, I completely forgot to start carrying the new one. Confused, at first, as to why my card wouldn’t work in the stiles anymore, I went on my merry little way showing my card to streetcar conductors and ticket collectors and beind easily waved through.

This went on for the better part of three days, until I finally figured out it was time to get out the new card: and I saw the dominant brown and understood why, while the turnstiles recognized my pass as being invalid for this month, the humans had seen the flash of brown, known it was this month’s colour, and allowed me through. It turned out to be an interesting little experiment on accuracy; if all passes had similar dominant colours from month-to-month, we’d likely be able to get away with a lot more invalid passes. And now I also know why usually the colours are so vastly different, month-to-month.

It did make me wonder whether whoever was in charge of the design of the cards for those two subsequent months got into trouble of some sort. And, did anyone else have a similar experience as I?