High Volume Crashes SEPTA Papal Pass Site

A special website selling SEPTA Regional Rail passes for the Pope’s visit in September closed less than two hours after it opened Monday due to technical problems, SEPTA said.

The e-commerce website, www.septa.org/papalvisitphilly, launched Monday morning to sell the Regional Rail passes for Sept. 26 and 27. The passes will be required for all Regional Rail travel during that time.

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

“While SEPTA was prepared for high volume when online sales began at 9 a.m. today, the traffic to the e-commerce site launched for pass sales was significantly higher than anticipated,” SEPTA said in a statement.

By 9:10 a.m., the site received approximately 900,000 visits and approximately 1,700 transactions were attempted per second, according to SEPTA.

“Most transactions were not completed, and therefore, most of the Regional Rail One Day passes are still available for customers to purchase when sales resume,” SEPTA said.

SEPTA says it will provide an update on the site’s status Tuesday morning.

There are approximately 175,000 passes available for each day of the Papal Visit — or approximately 350,000 total for Sept. 26 and 27 combined.