July 20, 2015
SEPTA has suspended its pre-sale of commuter passes required for Pope Francis' visit to Philadelphia in September for the remainder of the day due to website issues.
A limited number of special $10 one-day passes for use on Regional Rail were set to go on sale via an e-commerce site starting at 9 a.m. Monday morning. According to its website, the site experienced "technical issues" due to the high number of visitors.
There will be 24-hour advanced notice regarding when pass sales will resume. PhillyVoice will provide updates.
"While SEPTA was prepared for high volume when online sales began at 9 a.m. today, the traffic to the e-commerce site launched for pass sales was significantly higher than anticipated. During a 10-minute period after the sales site launched at 9 a.m., we received approximately 900,000 visits, and approximately 1,700 transactions were attempted per second," it reported.
"Most transactions were not completed, and therefore, most of the Regional Rail One Day passes are still available for customers to purchase when sales resume. There are approximately 175,000 passes available for each day of the Papal Visit - or approximately 350,000 total for Sept. 26 and 27 combined.
With the extraordinary number of people expected to attend events during the Papal Visit, SEPTA will be more than doubling Regional Rail service capacity on Saturday, September 26 and Sunday, September 27, 2015 by modifying the regular weekend operations plan."
RRD: The Papal E-Commerce site is temporarily closed while resolve problems. We apologize/will update when more info. is available
— SEPTA (@SEPTA) July 20, 2015
As of 11 a.m. Monday, the website was still down.
PATCO's Special Freedom cards are also available at its Broadway station and online. Passengers who do not have them will not be permitted on the trains on Sept. 26 and 27.
The deadline for PATCO's online purchases is Sept. 1. The cost is $5 for a one-day pass and $10 for a two-day pass for those 5 years of age and older. There is a limit of 10 cards per purchase.
Passengers may use their regular Freedom cards during the pope's visit and pay $2.50 for each ride.
