July 21, 2015
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority announced Tuesday that the sale of commuter passes for the weekend of Pope Francis' visit in September would not continue this week after the website -- where passes could be purchased -- was shut down Monday due to the large number of people trying to buy them.
A new date to purchase the remaining 175,000 passes for each day of the pope's visit has not yet been set; SEPTA officials continue to work with IT consultants to fix the problem.
According to SEPTA, 54,000 people logged on to the website Monday to try to buy the passes when the sale began at 9 a.m.
We will continue to evaluate the best option for us to move forward with the sale of the Papal Passes.
— SEPTA MediaRelations (@SEPTANews) July 21, 2015
As the transportation agency continues to try to fix its own e-commerce site, it will explore having outside vendors sell the passes instead. SEPTA plans to provide more information regarding the purchase of passes as soon as possible.
The individual passes meant to go on sale Monday were for the select number of Regional Rail lines running the weekend of Saturday, September 26 and Sunday, September 27. More information on those passes can be found here.
