No Papal Passes To Be Sold This Week: SEPTA

A special website selling Regional Rail passes for the Pope’s visit in September will not reopen this week, SEPTA announced Tuesday.

“SEPTA will not resume sales of One Day Regional Rail passes for the Papal Visit this week. We have been working with IT consultants over the last two days, and are still considering the best option to address the high interest among customers interested in purchasing the pass, and the heavy volume on the e-commerce site,” SEPTA said in a statement.

The e-commerce website, www.septa.org/papalvisitphilly, had a rocky launch Monday morning due to a higher volume of visitors than was expected.

The site, which is exclusively selling Regional Rail passes for Sept. 26 and 27, crashed shortly after it was opened. SEPTA said about 54,000 customers visited the site within the first minute to attempt to purchase passes, which will be required for all Regional Rail travel during that time.

But SEPTA said that high volume of visitors beyond what was anticipated was what crashed the site.

An analysis of the activity from Monday shows that 54,000 customers visited the e-commerce site within the first minute after the site was launched, SEPTA said.

There are 175,000 passes available for Saturday, Sept. 26, and Sunday, Sept. 27 and they will be sold quickly once sales re-launch, SEPTA said.

“We will continue to evaluate the best option for us to move forward with the sale of the Papal Passes. We may continue to work with the IT consultants to improve the e-commerce site; we are also considering working with an outside vendor to sell the passes for us.

SEPTA will continue to provide information about when the passes will be available.

“The most important consideration for SEPTA is to manage the volume of users coming to the site, and to make sure that the passes are purchased by those who want to come to see the pope, or need to travel for work and other regular commuting needs,” the statement said.