SEPTA Suspends Pope Pass Sales Due to Technical Difficulties

"Most transactions were not completed." They'll try again tomorrow.

Pope Francis, miqu77 / Shutterstock.com. Pope Passes sample, via SEPTA.

Pope Francis, miqu77 / Shutterstock.com. Pope Passes sample, via SEPTA.

Special SEPTA passes for Pope Francis’ visit in September were set to go on sale this morning, and the site went live at 9 a.m. as promised. But then things started going haywire, with users reporting technical difficulties purchasing  passes.

In a series of tweets just now, SEPTA has announced that it has suspended sales for the remainder of the day of the one-day Regional Rail passes “due to technical problems.”

“Tomorrow, we will provide advanced notice to our riders, the public (and the media) regarding when pass sales will resume,” SEPTA announced. “While SEPTA was prepared for high volume when online sales began, traffic to the e-commerce site was significantly higher than anticipated.”

Importantly, SEPTA notes, “Most transactions were not completed. Therefore, most of the One Day passes are still available for customers to purchase when sales resume.”

SEPTA adds that there will be approximately 175,000 one-day passes available for each day, for a total of approximately 350,000. As Sandy Smith noted earlier, however, there are caps per station and time slot, which likely accounts for the approximate numbers.