What it does
Every route in Reroute carries a price, not just a duration. For a transit trip that is the fare each agency charges you. For a drive it is fuel, parking and the toll if you take one. For a park and ride it is both.
The price is calculated for you specifically. Set your rider category and how you pay once, and every route from then on is priced as you would actually be charged rather than at the adult sticker rate.
That is what makes the Cheapest ranking mean anything. A comparison between a fare and a drive is only useful if the drive is carrying its real costs.
How it works
Transit legs are priced per agency. A local fare is charged once, and where a trip boards more than one local agency the transfer credit that Ontario's One Fare programme provides is applied automatically for tap and pass riders, shown as its own credit line rather than hidden in a total. Cash riders still pay each agency, because that is what actually happens at the fare box.
Commuter rail is priced by distance from the operator's own fare tables for the specific station pair, your rider category and your payment method, so it appears as a named line rather than an estimate. When a leg cannot be resolved that way, the whole trip falls back to a distance formula rather than mixing a real fare and a guess in one total.
Driving is priced as fuel for the distance, plus parking at the far end, plus any toll actually driven. Tolls are worked out from the stretches genuinely on the tolled road, allocated across its published zones and priced for the time of day and direction, with the trip and camera charges added unless you have said you carry a transponder.
A trip, itemised
This is what the breakdown looks like on a trip that boards two local agencies and then a commuter train, for a rider tapping a card. Every line is one the app really prints; the credit line is the part most fare calculators leave out.
- GO TransitPRESTO · Adult
- distance fare
- TTCPRESTO · Adult
- $3.30
- MiWayPRESTO · Adult
- $3.30
- Free local transfer
- -$6.60
- You pay
- the train fare, on its own
Two local agencies boarded, two local fares charged, both cancelled by the transfer credit because the trip touched the train and the rider tapped a card. Pay cash and the credit is not there, because at the fare box it is not either.
Make it yours
Every setting below is named exactly as the app names it, with where to find it. None of it needs an account.
- Fare typeSettings → Fares
- Adult, Youth, Senior, Child, Post-Secondary or Fair Pass. Pick one: a discount programme replaces the standard fare rather than stacking on top of it, and children twelve and under ride free.
- Payment methodSettings → Fares
- PRESTO, Contactless, Cash or Pass. PRESTO and Contactless take the same discounted fare; cash and day pass fares differ, and cash is what loses you the free transfer between local agencies.
- Include parking costSettings → Trip preferences → Driving preferences
- Folds estimated parking into what a drive costs. Off to start, because a parking guess in a headline total talks riders out of routes, but it is the switch that makes a drive and a fare genuinely comparable.
- 407 transponderSettings → Trip preferences → Driving preferences
- Takes the camera charge off every 407 stretch Reroute prices, on a park and ride's drive leg as much as on a pure drive.
- Avoid tollsSettings → Trip preferences → Driving preferences
- Routes the drive around toll roads entirely, which is often the difference between a drive that beats transit on price and one that does not.
- Sort routes bySettings → Trip preferences
- Choose Cheapest and the list is ordered on the total you would actually pay, across every mode at once, with the same disruption and lateness rules still sinking bad routes.
Get more out of it
- Set your category and payment first
It is two taps and it changes every number in the app from then on. A senior comparing routes at the adult rate is comparing the wrong trips.
- Set Home and Work
Save them as place shortcuts and Reroute stops charging you to park in your own driveway. It is the single biggest distortion in a naive drive-versus-transit comparison.
- Turn on parking costs before you trust Cheapest
With parking excluded, every drive looks better than it is. Turning it on is what makes the ranking honest about the far end of the journey.
- Look at the credit line, not just the total
On a trip crossing two local agencies the breakdown shows each fare and then the transfer credit that cancels the extra one. Seeing it is how you learn the second agency is free when you tap.
- Compare the toll route against the free one
The alternatives are priced, not just timed. A 407 route that saves under a minute and costs a great deal more is a trade worth seeing spelled out.
Good to know
- Driving costs are estimates and say so
Fuel is a standard consumption and price per litre rather than your car's, and parking at the far end is a tier rather than a specific lot. The fare side is exact; the driving side is a good-faith estimate.
- Real commuter rail fares need the operator's fare data
When it is available, a trip is priced at the actual quoted fare for that station pair. When it is not, the whole leg falls back to a distance estimate shown as one flat line, rather than mixing a real number and an estimated one.
- Contactless has no concession rate
Open payment is priced as adult, because that is what tapping a bank card charges. Choosing a discount category and paying contactless are two different answers to the same question, and the breakdown follows the card.
- Toll distance we cannot place is not guessed at
Stretches of tolled road outside the published rate table are reported as unpriced rather than filled in with a plausible number.
Under the hood
Local fares are resolved from the rider category to a base fare, and a One Fare credit is emitted as a negative line item that zeroes the extra local agencies for tap and pass riders. Commuter rail is priced from Metrolinx fare data for the specific station pair, rider category and payment method when the fare topic is authorised, with the station identifiers bridged from the schedule data. Every leg has to resolve before real fares are used, which is what keeps a single itemised total from being half real and half estimated.
Driving cost is fuel from distance plus a parking tier plus tolls. Toll stretches are attributed from the route's own step references rather than from road-class annotations, which over-attribute free highways wherever they pass an interchange, then projected onto a fixed centreline for the tolled corridor and allocated across its published zones. Each zone is priced from a transcribed rate chart by time band and direction, resolved for the time you would actually be on the road rather than the time you left.
The result folds into the trip's total, so the Cheapest ranking reflects the real bill, while the default Best ordering stays a perceived-time calculation and is unaffected by price.