Ventra

I’ve been using this app pretty much since it launched in Chicago and have never had as many issues as I’ve had recently. The “trip tools” tab meant to give upcoming buses/train arrival times is consistently in error and shows no information at all. You can get arrival times from the home screen but it is always behind by a few minutes and doesn’t seem to refresh itself, causing regularly missed buses. The only reason I’m giving 2 stars and not 1 is because the payment features reliably work, but it’s very frustrating to have to use two apps for transit.

the last time I used this awful app was in 2016. It was buggy, slow and just an awful user experience. Thankfully I no longer needed to use it for almost a decade until I moved and got rid of my car, walking to most places or Ubering. However, on the rare occasion where I need to go to the suburbs the Metra is the best option. So I resurrected the app on my phone thinking the bugs have to be ironed out after 8 years right? After updating it I chose a ticket for my route, got to the cart…and the ‘Purchase’ button was so low on my phones screen that it interfered with the slide out drawer of my iPhone. The developers placed their only means to purchase their product below another form of UI interaction. The FOCUS of the app completely rendered useless. Clicking on the button does absolutely nothing. For all I know it could be because it’s just broken in general and maybe not because it was implemented and designed in an awful spot. Metra must be receiving kickbacks for riders purchasing physical tickets at the booths. The Metra must be thinking “Let’s make the app completely irrelevant our passengers can thank us 8 years from now.”

This app has always worked fairly well for me (the bus/train times are usually far more accurate than google maps). However, I recently decided to add my ventra card to my apple wallet, just in case I ever forgot my physical card. Lo and behold, as soon as the card was added my physical card quit working. I even tried disconnecting the card from my wallet, and the physical card still didn't work. This has made my attempt at convenience very inconvenient (it takes more time to open your phone then just pull put a card). It seems like if linking to Apple wallet is going to have such an effect that ventra should at least warn you before you do it (how hard is it to program a pop up?). The fact that they essentially just made my card useless without my knowing such a thing would happen is shady as well as inconvenient (and totally unnecessary). Hopefully they fix this, but if you haven't yet connected your card to your apple wallet, be forewarned!

Downloaded the VENTRA app and should have noticed the 2 stars that the app had. Great concept if it worked. Poor execution as they charged me for the CTA pass but didn’t load it onto the Ventra account. The pass is shown in the app as “In Queue” and has remained in this state for almost a week! I was forced to purchase a paper CTA pass to travel during my stay in Chicago. Called Ventra Customer Service twice and was looped into the endless phone loop. Finally got a person to answer the phone and was told they will NOT refund the pass fare and would only transfer it to a physical Ventra card. I explained that I did not live in Chicago and would have no need for a Ventra Card. She told me that they WILL NOT issue refunds to NON-ILLINOIS residents. What?! When I told her that the CTA agent told me to purchase and paper pass and ask for a refund from Ventra, she replied “Don’t ever listen to a CTA agent.” She refused to escalate the call and basically did nothing to help even though the problem was with the Ventra App. Beware.

-stars This had to be developed by a team that never used public transportation. It’s not convenient and trying to navigate quickly is impossible. I liked the past app had the drop down menus, and I could see all the stops the train was going to make so I could also decide which was express. That also allowed me to see which stop I might use if I was walking in the city. I also don’t like that it automatically gives me the metro I’m closest to at that point. That makes me have to navigate around to the stop or line I actually want to use. There’s a lot of unnecessary information presented to me that I have to process and that’s not what I need to be doing when I’m trying to not miss transportation. I don’t want to have to add favorites because I don’t always know where I’ll be. So trying to find a metro line on the fly is not intuitive. I can’t help but think this development was created by some company owed a favor or vs versa in typical Chicago corruption style.

Given this app is used by the CTA, Metra, and Pace you would think it would be a lot better. The UI is decent, the real-time info is very handy, and is functional. However, it still is lacking some general polish. One obvious complaint is how poorly the Metra ticket “X” button is placed. Why is it all the way in the top right of the screen where the notch cut out exists on the iPhone? Every update I hope they address such an obvious issue and it isn’t. I can barley get the ticket to close unless I spam my finger multiple times there or just give up and force close the app. The app is passable, but as soon as you compare it to an app like Transit (which I pretty much use all the time in place of this, unless I need to display my Metra ticket) you realize how much better this app can and should be.

This app works maybe 50% of the time. For something as critical as a commuting tool, that percentage is abysmal. You bring it up and the app just doesn’t load. Or you try to buy a ticket and the app hangs. Also, the layout of this app is made to dupe you out of money. One example is that you can’t re-buy a day pass, which is a discount to a single way ticket. You have to navigate through a very deep set of screens to buy another day pass, rather than a single tap, which is how a single ride ticket works. Another example is that it defaults you to your credit card, even when you have a transit benefit. I’ve had multiple instances where I used the default payment of a credit card when I NEVER want to use that. You can’t change a setting to make this happen, though. Questionable scruples from the creator of this app.

It’s unacceptable that you can’t use the app if there’s an update. So if I’m in a rush and can’t use it until I update, I just miss my train because I can’t get in until update is done? I have never seen that with any other app ever in the 12ish years that I’ve been using an iPhone. *update* I received this reply from the developer: “Sorry for this unavoidable inconvenience—we definitely don’t like to force an update to occur, but it has been necessary both in retiring the old app (which is no longer supported by its makers after several weeks of transition), and sometimes in updating to a new version for security and/or stability reasons. Though we, like others, do plan to keep this very rare, it’s occasionally necessary require an update sometimes in apps like this or a banking app, where you can manage money stored in an account, to ensure stability and/or account security." I did not have the old app, I had already upgraded to the new app and this still happened. I also don’t believe I have ever been forced to update to use an app. An email or notification should have proceeded this forced update so we users/customers could have updated when convenient instead of being surprised and caught off guard. This reply does not convince me to change my review.

So, after all this time, they added the feature I’ve been wanting for. There is now a “recent purchases“ with a “buy” option on the Metra buy tickets screen. So, it should be quite useful to be able to buy the same ticket every day, and not have to go through the same 7 click process of selecting the line, stations and payment option, right? Wrong!!! The previous purchase gets removed after just a few hours, so you can’t even use it in the evening after a morning trip, much less the next day! Why did you even bother Metra? Completely useless and disappointing. Does no one at Metra even read these reviews and feedback or even use the app? After not even having a “recent purchase” list forever, you finally add one, and bungle it so badly.

Great app. Works as intended. Has a few nice features. I wouldn’t change much about it if not anything. But I am wondering how do you remove a Ventra card you’ve added onto the app? P.S. Whenever you pull up a Metra ticket to show the conductor it’s very hard to press the X in the top right corner to close it. I usually just close and restart the app after showing them instead of fiddling with it trying to get it close. That’s something I would change. That and favorites get reset a lot randomly. But besides that, Ventra is a really great app :)

This app, while very promising, is an utter failure of the developers. The proof that failing to regularly update apps leads to disaster. There have been several times over the last couple of months where I was nearly out of luck being on the metra and not being able to purchase or display a ticket because the app was crashing and attempts to reset my phone and redownload the app were seeming futile. I am currently fighting with this “updated” app to buy tickets now. Luckily I purchased a bulk order last week or I would have had a hard time getting to work today as I don’t carry cash because the app is supposed to be the one stop shop for my transit needs. This app needs a large overhaul and not just cosmetically. It’s useless if functionality isn’t working!

I got the app for an out of town visit and was very nervous to rely on it due to some of the reviews. I tried getting a 7 day pass and my payment was processed on my card, but I didn’t receive my pass. I was able to call customer service the next day, and I was on hold for 10 minutes tops. They were able to help me and were very nice. It seems the app regularly has glitches, but it was resolved and my money was returned to me. Since then, the app has worked great and my pass through the app has been very helpful on my trip.

This app is completely useless now. Chicago is too big of a city for this to be a problem and someone needs to revamp the entire app. Can’t load money onto your card through the app. Payment fails every time no matter what. Use Apple Pay? Fail. Use debit card? Fail. Uninstall and reinstall app? Fail. Autoreload? Fail. Remove card and try to put it back on? Wont even connect my card again. Something so prevalent in a lot of peoples LITERAL everyday life shouldn’t be this bad. I need to get to work and back home and I can’t even load money on my card. It take a few minutes to do it from the website but save yourself the headache and use the website until you see people making better recent reviews for this app.

This dumb app logged me out mid train ride in the city and caused me to miss my stop. I had a guest account and was automatically logged in before I got on the train ride. I didn’t have a password because it was a guest account and I didn’t realize I had been logged out until the conductor was at my neck yelling at me for my ticket. I went to retrieve my weekend pass and all of a sudden it told me to buy a new ticket and logged me out of my guest account. I went to find my password but realized I never created one. The conductor waited on me for about 10 minutes to create a whole new password and reset my app and log back into my guest account, and didn’t let me off the train so I missed my stop. THIS APP IS GARBAGE DO NOT USE.

I use this app everyday, and everyday I’m disappointed all over again 😭😭😭😭 I’m always getting bus ghosted because the tracking system they use to monitor buses is very unreliable :( Also the interface is not great. It would be nice if it allowed you to favorite lines, but it only allows you to save one specific stop rather than the whole line. Additionally, the favorites feature is buggy - I find that I have to delete my favorites every few weeks and resave them because they glitch, and they start to say “No information available“ after a bit. CTA service is already unreliable enough, and this glitchy poorly designed app only makes the experience worse.

I have to resave my favorite stops every couple weeks, because they disappear from the app. Trackers are often inaccurate and buses and trains suddenly disappear from the trackers, only to appear again after several minutes with random arrival time. Every few weeks, the payment system is off and shows some kind of random errors, saying that they cannot process my payment, only to find out that they later on processed of the same payment multiple times. Sometimes the payment simply won’t go through, even though everything is fine with my credit card, etc. their customer service personnel is often unprofessional and careless.

I routinely travel the country for work but call Chicago home. So, I have a lot of exposure to what other cities have to offer. We’re fortunate to have a fairly comprehensive transit system, compared to other metros. But, undeniably, the absolute worst technology to support riders of that transit system. This app is 50/50 at best when it comes to stability, meaning if I need to open the app on any given day, I have a 50/50 shot that it will open to purchase a ticket or show my purchased ticket to the conductor. The underlying logic regarding how I purchase a ticket or view routes is also garbage. But it’s not even worth wasting wasting pixels on articulating those challenges until they can get the app to actually reliably open. Shameful and embarrassing that this is what Chicago, one the best cities in the world, has to offer its travelers and/or commuters. If this is application is actively being funded, someone should open an investigation to see how those funds are being used. No way it’s going toward development, it’s been this way for far too long.

I don’t understand why Ventra created an app from the ground up rather than using the old app as a model. This new app is impossible to use. The bus times are no longer accurate, trying to establish a favorite stop is virtually impossible, and needing to go to a train stop just to reload my card. For someone that uses the bus, this is EXTREMELY inconvenient. So I have to walk 10 blocks to the train station and 7 blocks back just to use a bus that is only 3 blocks away? I wanna be patient and supportive but it appears as though the designers of the app are in over their heads, never use public transportation, and never used the the old app outside of sitting in an office so have no “real world” understanding on how people use the app.

I use this app every day. It hasn’t logged me out in a year- I didn’t recently update it, I did not restart my phone - all I did was buy a Metra ticket and as I went to show my ticket to the person outside, before the tracks, it decided to log me out. Now, we all know that we have multiple log ins over the years, endless passwords and being logged out as I’m trying to catch a train is infuriating. Tried 3 different usernames and passwords only to have my phone rescue me because the info was saved elsewhere. Ventra doesn’t have a “save log in” function so it would’ve missed my train if not for my phone OS. Please fix it and if you need the name of a good programmer, I know several.

App crashes occasionally (I understand, it happens to all apps) and have to re-log in using user name and password instead of the Face ID it has already collected and been enabled. This is especially inconvenient (and embarrassing) when the app crashes right after the conductor shows up and asks for the ticket. I’ve seen lots of people including myself scrambling to type in user name / password after multiple failed attempts while the conductor has to wait on the side. Please do everyone a favor, just enable the Face ID so people can easily access the ticket or fix the bugs so the app won’t periodically log itself out.

1. On iPhone XS (ie not the smallest mobile breakpoint), the security question about street cuts off at the end instead of wrapping, so users must guess which street is referenced 2. Email with temporary password doesn’t highlight or make the pw a larger font. If it’s hard for digital natives to copy out of the email in order to paste into the app, it’s hard for everyone. 3. Creating a new password requires duplicated entry into two fields. That’s normal but the error that displays when special characters are missing is that the pw don’t match.

Came to Chicago for two days, and haven’t dealt with CTA in probably a decade. Downloaded the app, was prepared for some bureaucratic nightmare hellscape, but all we needed was a one-day CTA pass and it was so easy to get it and then use it. I quite enjoy the “Help plan a trip” feature, as I’m not from Chicago and need lots of help being Timmy the Touristo. I didn’t get lost, and given enough time and battery life, I think I could get around thanks to this system. Thank you.

This app needs to be updated to where you can receive notifications by phone and not just email. Everyone isn’t always checking their email. Due to this feature I forget to check when my pass expires and end up being charged for rides only to turn around and have to buy another weekly pass because I use public transportation to go to work and get around. I believe the company does this to get more money from its customers. It’s 2024 and there’s other systems that give it’s customers the option to be notified by email or text. Update your app!

updates to include the transit card in apple pay are great.... that’s about where the helpfulness of this app end. the favorite stops section is buggy showing an “no information” for some stops… this would be the fault of the CTA if it were a breakdown between ventra and CTA however a simple search of a stop outside of the favorite section yields accurate arrival times. why the discrepancy? the use of two different “favorite location” and a “favorite stops” section is.... pointless adding to the confusion of the app. eliminate the “favorite location” section.

And it's funny because I can accept that your physical card stops working after adding to Apple Wallet but imagine trying to add your monthly pass and you can't because "service error." And I can't add it at the kiosk because my physical card no longer works. So now I have to either pay an additional 5 bucks for a new card or buy a disposable pass, which are so flimsy that they can't hold up in my wallet past two weeks. If you're going to offer an "Add to Apple Wallet" feature, make sure the app and your servers are functional. Because a lot of people rely on CTA and what I'm experiencing right now definitely ruined my day.

I’d give it zero stars if I could. Wanted to take advantage of the daily pass rate so tried to set up my account. Won’t let me add payment, so Ventra rep had to manually add and it still wouldn’t let me purchase a ticket. Tried making purchases, but didn’t go through - however my credit card was charged each time with pending charges and thankfully reversed. Ventra said it was my credit card, but it wasn’t. All on their end. Rep wiped my account, started over and same issue persisted. Was supposed to escalate my issue and guess what, I never heard back. Absolutely ridiculous that this can’t be fixed and function properly.

This app made taking public transportation so easy and cost effective. We bought a 3 day pass for $15 (it’s good for 72 hours from first ride, so we actually used it over 4 different days). It worked on all city buses and elevated trains (blue line to O’Hare). After purchasing your pass, simply add to your Wallet. Then, click on the card to “pay” until you see the “hold near reader” icon. I will definitely use this again when visiting Chicago

Once again, Ventra has a new issue that needs to be fixed. I haven't been able to reload my Ventra card via the app for the last two days despite updating the app in between tries yesterday. What makes it worse is every time I tried to load it, my cards were charged without a single cent being loaded onto my card. What makes it even worse is the app is NECESSARY to have because there is no alternative for loading your Ventra card outside of a station or store. This app needs a major overhaul before I rate it anything over one star, and I don't even want to give it that. FIX THE APP!

Horrible customer service and bugs for this app never get fixed . If commuters didn’t have to use it to travel and need it for the convenience it serves this would’ve been a washed app . Still many upset users . This app will sign you in and out as it pleases . Has crazy freezes and then again customer service is slower than dying from obesity. It’s millions using this why are we being told to email it need to be a number always available with agents . The CTA and metra are always making profits round the clock so why should are our questions /problems not always resolved in a timely fashion

The CTA webpage has reliable arrival times but this app doesn’t. Some stations (I’m looking at you Sheridan Red) don’t show live arrival times at all on the app. Favorite bus stop moved or doesn’t show arrival times anymore? Good luck deleting it without uninstalling/reinstalling the app. Want to split payments with transit benefit account and credits already on your account? Too bad, it doesn’t work (it does work with transit benefit money and card payment). Interface is okay but arrival times and other features need fixes/improvements.

App has issues connecting to servers often. If your connection is bad when you open the app (which is common while in the tunnel), it just logs you out instead of re-attempting. A few times it would just show the splash screen then crash after a minute. Safe area wasn't used while developing the app so some buttons go into your status bar on the top of the screen. The show your ticket and tap on your screen flow is kind of weird and I think could have been better thought out. Overall very unprofessional and sloppy especially for an app that has to be reliable every single time.

Purchasing the tickets was confusing because when I bought the cta day pass it was not clearly stated what the difference is between cta and the pace buses. I was charged an additional $2 because I didn’t understand that pace buses were different for some reason. Purchasing a pace pass was nonsensical because I was only in the city for 2 days and you can only buy pace passes for 30 days at a time. At one point there was a huge delay with the buses but I was not notified through the app. Other cities seem to have these kinds of features figured out. It makes me hesitant to use this city’s public transportation again.

Whomever built this app should be fired. It’s not intuitive and not easily accessible. I have been trying to get new password for two months because all of the sudden they require a security question. This would normally be totally fine (added security is appreciated as I’d be glad to simply assign a question and change my password) - but no. They literally won’t let me in to the system online and when I call, they have an influx of calls so I request a call back that sometimes/sometimes does not come.

I don’t know who else is going through the same problem I’m going through, but I just got a new iPhone 13 Pro Max couple days ago coming from a iPhone 8 Plus, did what I had to with everything and soon I get to the wallet and start adding my cards and stuff in there and I get to my Ventra card, I get to a turnstile and try by tap on like 15 times and it act like it couldn’t ready the card on my phone, I had to be tapped on countless times from the people In the kiosks or they let me through the handicap gate and it feels like I wasted money on getting a 30 day pass I can’t use if I hogwash of a app don’t let me tap on

Helpful when the app works and the tracking is actually accurate. I appreciate being able to reload my fare via Apple Pay. That said, the “Favorites” seem to be reset anytime there’s an update or something…they never stay for longer than a few weeks. There’s also seems to be connectivity issues where the app can’t reach the server (even tho I have service and/or Wi-Fi). Decent app for a public organization but plenty of room for improvement

Why digitize the public transport system if you’re going to have terrible customer service. Because of my digital bus card not working I’ve been spending money from my debit card which I should not have to do when this ventra card is supposed to link to a benefit card. It’s so frustrating to deal with looping. The digital version of the card has all of a sudden stopped registering at train stops or on busses… it’s definitely from an update just not sure what?! Tried to download again and still same issue… back to the hard copy of the card!

10-ride tickets expire or are not found. This has happened twice. Most recently today. I have a 10-tide purchased a month ago that should have 6 rides to use the app updated overnight and my tickets are gone. The link “what happened to my tickets” states the tickets should upload immediately or after a few minutes. I’m 20 minutes into my commute and they still haven’t refreshed. Last time tickets disappeared the app had a server error. When it came back online two tickets were used. Customer support is worthless and they do not provide refunds!

In my “favorites,” on my Home Screen, I have two Metra routes, the inbound and outbound for my daily commute. The visual design fails to make it clear which one is which. It should be as simple as: Rogers Park >>> Chicago OTC (and the inverse Chicago OTC >>> Roger Park). I have also found that the schedule sometimes lies. A delayed train will sometimes list as “departed.” Perhaps, if the delay is long enough to overlap with the next train, they think they can save face by pretending the earlier one didn’t exist. I just can’t help thinking how genuinely valuable this app could be, which only makes me more disappointed with how bad it is.

This app has generally worked well ONLY failing about 1/10 tries on the bus. Tried to add to Apple Watch today for a workout and it says once I add to Watch i automatically remove from phone?! I use apple wallet for lots of things (store loyalty cards, airline passes, in addition to credit and debit cards) and have never heard such a thing! Started to read the comments and Nie I’m hoping I can get it back on my phone later without losing the initial card as others have experienced. Ugh, please fix

Occasionally the app won’t let me purchase fare or passes. It will say every card I have is declined even though they all have money on them. And it also takes the money out of my account despite claiming the card is declined. And STILL DOESNT GIVE ME THE PASS. Monthly passes cost $105. This last time it charge me for two monthly passes after saying it was declined and never gave me the passes. It hasn’t let me load fare in a week now so i keep having to walk all the way to the nearest station to just load money… That on top of my money floating around in no man’s land..

My favorite thing about this app - aside from it showing me the times of busses that don’t exist - is that I will mark a particular stop as a favorite, then at some point that stop that I bookmarked will no longer show any date (it’s essentially a dead link), so then I have to find the stop again and re-add it to my favorites. However, because the old stop “no longer exists,” I can’t remove it. I have 14 stops in my favorites tab. I want about 3 of them, but I can’t remove stops after they’ve been glitched into not existing. The UI on this app is a disgrace…

The app will buffer and disconnect saying that you’re not connected to Internet no matter if you use your home Internet, mobile data or somebody else’s Internet if you’re having that problem on your phone, the only way to fix it is by deleting the app and re-downloading it. The only reason why I have this app is to track the bus and I don’t wanna have to go through the time of deleting the app and re-downloading it when I want to track the bus in the morning

Just recently got back on the Ventra app and purchased a ticket for a one day cta. The payment did go through but for someone reason something glitched on their end and my payment was stuck in pending yet reflected that my purchase was made. The money was taken from my account. I had no ticket and customer service couldn’t do anything for me. I asked to speak to a manager and I’m sure we all know they were busy. Then I was gonna go down to the office and guess what else l, they aren’t open supposedly because of Covid. How convenient right?? Definitely not a fan of the app basically can take your money and you get no ticket, no help, no refund, nothing. The most you get is a sorry. I feel bad for their customer service reps but I also don’t understand how they can get paid and not be able to help? This is the world we live in. Thanks

This app has never been great, but the updates are making it even worse. I can’t even get into the app now because it says there’s an update but it won’t let me update it. Last time I was on the app I hadn’t used my card in a while and they closed my account. I was able to use my card a couple of times after but it was hit or miss. I had money on my card and when I scanned to get on the bus it kept saying insufficient fare. So not only is the app terrible and not working, but apparently now I need a whole new card and account and I’m out $10 from the money still in the closed account.

The ventra app is incapable of accurately reflecting arrival times and accurately tracking bus/train progress. Buses often disappear with the next one in 20 minutes. This makes it completely impossible to schedule when I should leave. Using the app is no better than randomly arriving at the bus station. Would encourage the PM to prioritize this fix because really the only value prop of this app over Google maps is the ability to more accurately schedule routes.

Okay I am a regular consumer of the bus and train. I commute every day. And this app is almost ALWAYS ,like 99%, wrong about the arrival times. I can not trust it for anything. The time is always off. I will miss my bud or wait for 20 extra min. It is just a hot mess. Not to mention I had a card on my account. It logged me out after an update. I was unable to recover my card or account because every time I sent the reset password info out to my email it never arrived. For all the money that moves threw your company I would figure a app wouldn’t be a issue.

I wished this app was design much better when I first got the app it allowed me to put $15 on a new card because I couldn’t get a physical due to the blue line being closed for reconstruction and when I tried to re-add money onto the app it kept glitching so now I can $1.50 on a card that I can’t use and I went to the green line to try and tap so I can add money that way but it was also saying error which means that the card doesn’t even exist anymore I want my $1.50 back I can buy some chips from 7-11 with that!!!!

This app is so unreliable! It has days were the server is unable connect and you cannot purchase tickets from the app. Which is super inconvenient. By the time you can get a hold of a customer service representative your train ride is over! I would recommend purchasing tickets days in advance or carry cash in case the app is down. I’ve experienced the aforementioned several times with no cash and it’s annoying to continuously have to explain to conductors that app is down. & they’re response is to restart your phone. Please do better.

If the app actually followed guidelines and was tested on anything modern they would realize that they are using too much of the screen. The bottom bar is under the action bar on any modern iPhone without a home button. The metra ticket overflows into the clock and battery status area. Once you use a ticket it’s basically impossible to close it unless you tap the 1 pixel out of 4 million that lets you by pure luck. I appreciate modernizing everything and using an app like this for tickets but at some point the bare minimum isn’t cutting it.

I downloaded this last, ironically, because the reviews were the lowest. This app is quite literally the ONLY app that allows me to book tickets to Chicago online. Nothing else worked except this. Not sure why the reviews are so rough, you show your ticket one time, stop crying if you have to go to your email to pull it up.