SEPTA to hold lottery for papal passes

HEAVEN MAY NOT RUN on a lottery system, but SEPTA will when it tries to resell its regional rail passes on Monday for the weekend of Pope Francis' visit.

After the transit agency's e-commerce site for regional rail papal passes crashed upon release last week due to high volume, SEPTA has scratched its original model and opted for an online lottery system that will be hosted by Amazon.com and run in partnership with Ticketleap, a Philly-based firm.

Those interested in the passes can visit septa.org over a 24-hour period from 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 3. Everyone who enters during that period will have an equal opportunity to obtain the passes, said SEPTA spokeswoman Jerri Williams.

"There is no need to set your alarm clock for midnight," she said.

Riders will only be able to submit one entry, but they will be able to enter their top three preferred rail stations and they will be able to purchase up to 10 tickets at $10 a piece if selected.

Winners will be notified via email on Aug. 6 and will have three days from that date to purchase the tickets online.

Once the lottery is closed, Ticketleap will remove fraudulent and suspicious entries in an effort to cut black-market sales of the passes. Anyone who tries to enter the lottery more than once could have their entry voided.

However, that does not stop someone who is able to purchase the maximum of 10 tickets from keeping three and selling seven.

"That's what happens with any in-demand ticket or passes," Williams said. "We hope because this is a papal visit that people around the region don't try to take advantage of it, but there is really nothing SEPTA can do to monitor or police people who want to take advantage and scalp the passes."

Given that only 175,000 passes are available for each day of the papal visit on Sept. 26 and Sept. 27, and given that SEPTA's failed site had about 54,000 visitors within the first minute of launch, the demand for passes far exceeds the number available.

The city has, so far, been unable to tell those who do not get a regional rail papal pass how they should travel into Philadelphia for the pope's visit, especially since organizers have said cars will not be a viable option.

Williams suggested SEPTA's other modes of transportation, including trolleys, buses and subways, but said she couldn't suggest much aside from that.

SEPTA is expected to announce information, possibly as early as next week, about 50,000 papal passes it will have available for the Norristown High Speed line and the 101 and 102 trolleys. The agency is also expected to announce information about city transit vehicles during the papal visit, though riders will still be able to use tokens and TransPasses on those, Williams said.

SEPTA spent $110,000 on the site designed by Philly-based firm CapTech that crashed last week, Williams said. SEPTA will still use that site for papal TransPass sales and following the papal visit, the agency will use it as its e-commerce site, she said.

The new lottery system costs about $300,000, and will only be used for regional rail papal passes and papal passes for the Norristown High Speed Line and the 101 and 102 trolleys, Williams said.

"There's a number of people who are very anxious about what is going to be happening in the city and SEPTA does not want to be a part of that anxiety," Williams said. "We believe it is worth it for us to make this investment in order to help the city."

Online: ph.ly/crime

Blog: ph.ly/Delco