Smartcard chaos comes to Canberra

Ryan said :

The current delivery of MAN Buses means a gain of 40 buses on top of the existing fleet

On that topic, there were a large number of buses parked at the old Woden bus depot this afternoon – this was the first time I’ve seen ACTION buses there for years. They all looked like the newer models.

switch said :

How will you be required to swipe off to get out? Is there some sort of physical barrier? I don’t see the driver getting out of his seat to chase you to get you to come back and swipe your ticket if you just jump off. Pardon me if this should all be obvious – I haven’t caught a bus in Canberra.

The system in Perth is that you will be charged a default fare. So if you only catch the bus from Woden to City & not tag off in the City & take a ride in a friends car. When you tag on the next time a default fare, which would add up to roughly a daily ticket would be deducted instead of a one way ride.

Yawn until someone can comprehensively prove that light rail will go anywhere near paying for itself in a reasonable pay back period, light rail will never happen. The only thing that will make it is if the federal government kicks in a large chunk of the setup costs.

Anyway back to smartcards- there is nothing to stop them putting a smartcard reader just near the back door for getting out at the interchange. It is hardly an inconvenience at all- I have used the HK system and also the Oyster system in London, and it barely makes any recognisable difference to 99% of people in terms of how long it takes to get off the bus. Once people are used to it, they will do it as second nature- I’d expect it probably is a sign that in future there will be variable pricing introduced, which is another good move.

Action do a lot of things wrong, but I think it is long overdue and certainly see it as a positive move,especially seeing the current stone age ticketing setup has to be replaced as pointed out earlier in the thread.

There wouldn’t be a barrier, and unless you had to touch off at your stop so you only got charged for the distance you travelled then there is no real reason for you to touch off nor would they have much leverage to make you do so. Unless they debited a fee for not touching off but thats a bit harsh if it is only for statistical info.

switch said :

How will you be required to swipe off to get out? Is there some sort of physical barrier? I don’t see the driver getting out of his seat to chase you to get you to come back and swipe your ticket if you just jump off. Pardon me if this should all be obvious – I haven’t caught a bus in Canberra.

People seem to be able to manage it in places like Singapore. Of course it helps that they are organised usually to get on the front door and off the back door, and have distance based fares and charge you the maximum fare till the end of the route if you don’t bother swiping off.

Its really not that hard to cope with.

It would be a crime if ACTION didn’t take the implementation of a smart card ticketing system as an opportunity to bring in a more reasonable fare structure, ie distance based.

Mkyi smart card in Victoria has been a disaster. Hundreds of millions just on consultancy fees and promotion and it does not work.

Light Rail: Expensive. It has just cost the SA government $100 million to build 2.8km of dual tramway track.

The swipe off is targetted at getting better information on travel patterns – so that ACTION can use this to better plan and tailor their services. Knowing where people get on is only half of the story !

In terms of the swipe off – I don’t think there will be anything to stop you from not swiping when you get off – the incentive to swipe off will be in the price deducted from card (ie. if you don’t swipe off then you will incur the maximum charge for your journey).

The system is based off the one used in Perth – which seems to have had few issues, and is relatively proven technology (unlike the trouble plagued systems like Myki in Melbourne).

MrPC said :

It’s hard to imagine why they would need people to tag off under our fare structre.

It’s not so much working out the number of passengers on a route (the present system already does that), but it’s more working out where exactly they are getting on and off the buses so that the information can be used to design better routes.

sepi said :

the money this has cost them could have paid for a few more drivers and buses. they need to concentrate on getting more buses out there, not tinkering around with these frills.

The current delivery of MAN Buses means a gain of 40 buses on top of the existing fleet

damien haas said :

Making everyone walk down to the front door to exit the bus – including those who sit right at the back who wait until the bus coms to a complete stop before getting out of their seat and walking to the front door.

There’s a tag on/off machine at the rear doors too.

knockknock-eggman said :

Why the negativity ? It seems like the natural progression to me.

I agree. Given that this is now mature technology and Canberra’s flat fee structure for buses couldn’t be simpler, the risks associated this this are low, particularly in comparison to the benefits. I spend about 10 minutes a day sitting in intertown buses at Civic and Woden while people use the current slow machines, so a quick smartcard system has real potential to shorten my daily commute.

Switch: No barrier, but in other systems I’ve used, there’s a financial penalty for failing to swipe off when you alight. So it’s in commuters’ interests to remember to swipe off. For example, in Perth, if you don’t tag off within the 1.5 hour travel window then you’re charged as if you went the maximum number of zones. I guess in the ACTION context, a forgetful commuter could be charged for an all-day pass …

On another note, I wonder whether this will mean that the back doors of buses will be used at all stops, rather than just at interchanges ? Or will buses only have one smartcard reader at the front ?

How will you be required to swipe off to get out? Is there some sort of physical barrier? I don’t see the driver getting out of his seat to chase you to get you to come back and swipe your ticket if you just jump off. Pardon me if this should all be obvious – I haven’t caught a bus in Canberra.

It seems sometimes as if Action deliberately design delays into their business processes.

Making everyone walk down to the front door to exit the bus – including those who sit right at the back who wait until the bus coms to a complete stop before getting out of their seat and walking to the front door.

Making everyone swipe OFF when they exit the bus.

Im sure that action think that by inconveniencing everyone in such a fashion, in order to gain statistical information, they are leaping into the 1990’s, but it really doesnt help trip times.

And yes Roesljas, light rail would be a better mass transit solution -using it in conjunction with park and ride as the backbone of a transport network and integrating it with more frequent local service buses.

This would definitely be a good idea.

People comments include the fact that action are spending/ wasting money on this new technology (hardly new by the way) but those old magnetic strip paper cards waste money. When i used to live in canberra at least 2 and often more routes per week the card machine was already broken or was broken as someone inserted their slightly bent card into it and from then on 20 people at that stop alone would walk on for free. How is that not wasting money????

Also if canberra adopted zones or at least distance travelled then a lot of people would save money and the system would be fair to all commuters travelling any distance.

Also when the government finally realise that more busses are not the solution to over crowded roads and parking, emissions and the inadequate nature of the current system and put a light rail network in, these smart cards or prox cards will fit that system very nicely and be modern.

Why did someone ask to catch a ferry with the card? what ferrys? funny!!

bd84 said :

You could always swipe on and off at the same time, either that or not swipe off at all. Canberra has one fare no matter how far you go, they can’t charge you anything more like in cities with zones.

They can. But will they? As has been said, tag on/tag off is best suited for fare structures which have variable fares such as zones or sections (Brisbane/SE Qld and Perth). To encourage tagging off a ‘default fare’ is charged at tagging on so and the actual fare is calculated when tagging off. The fact that ACTION/ACT Government is using this system suggests that they might be considering a variable fare system down the track, even though the plan is to keep the current flat structure initially.

And the company that is supplying the equipment, Parkeon, also supplies car park ticketing equipment. So it is possible (but not likely) that the MyWay smartcard system could be extended to include cash-less ACT Government car parking.

Grrrr said :

Bus trips could be simplified to a single-priced fares, eliminating the need to swipe out. A La HK.

A la HK is variable pricing for distance except where that isn’t possible. (One-way buses charge 3x as much if you get on near the start of the route than a few stops from the end, but buses on looped routes charge a flat rate.)

I think the best solution here is to charge the “full trip” rate when you get on the bus, then refund remaining segments if you swipe off early — giving people an incentive to do so.

p1 said :

Is there a company out there somewhere that has developed a technology to validate things using bluetooth? Cause everyone carries a phone….

Come now; we wouldn’t want commonsense to prevail.

The current system desperately needs replacing and smart cards are pretty much the only option.

You could always swipe on and off at the same time, either that or not swipe off at all. Canberra has one fare no matter how far you go, they can’t charge you anything more like in cities with zones.

fgzk said :

Pensioners of Canberra could be issued Iphones.

This post also solves the closing bank branch question. Is there a company out there somewhere that has developed a technology to validate things using bluetooth? Cause everyone carries a phone….

+1 with the Octpus Card love.

Bus trips could be simplified to a single-priced fares, eliminating the need to swipe out. A La HK.

Not that I’ve caught the bus more than once in Canberra. After paying $3 for a 2km journey several years ago, I quickly realised walking, bike riding, or driving are infinitely preferably depending on whether the journey is, say, 1-2km, 2-10km or 10km+

The existing ticket system is no longer supported by the vendor so it had to be replaced with something. If not smartcards, what?

I came here to rave about the Octopus in Hong Kong too: don’t even have to take it our of your bag, and accepted in so many places you never have to dick around with change if you stop to buy a newspaper or whatever. A curse I never noticed until I could live without it!

Not sure how I feel about tag-on/tag-off — if I lived in the inner North I would be heavily in favour so we could get variable distance-based pricing, but I don’t, so I like the flat rate where my travel is subsidised by those who pay as much to travel a quarter as far. 🙂

Pensioners of Canberra could be issued Iphones.

Cutting edge technologies smart cards are not. You would need to file its edge to get it to cut. I am sure that the owners of the patents are also disappoint that more Australian cities have not adopted the technology.

If you want cutting edge technology you might like to look at alternatives to diesel. $200 dollars a barrel for oil will affect how you travel more then flashing your handbag at a scanner.

Can I catch a ferry with it?

Yet another cutting edge technology decision from the stanhope govt,when a back to basics approach would be better.

they say we need to scan on and off so they can plan which bus routes are full etc, and put on more buses. Only they already know which ones are full to bursting, and have no extra buses to put on.

the money this has cost them could have paid for a few more drivers and buses. they need to concentrate on getting more buses out there, not tinkering around with these frills.

I predict this will be a fiasco…hope I’m wrong though.

And how will the pensioners of Canberra cope?

Why the negativity? T-Card? Myki? This is unnecessary technology with few real benefits, big costs, and big risks.

Why not rework the rates structure and fund the full cost of buses from rates instead of most of the cost of the buses as is the case now.

Think of all that diesel fuel that is wasted as the bus is idling while the driver is collecting fares or waiting for people to scan their tickets, and all the diesel fuel that is wasted as the alternator is powering all the ticketing hardware. It’d cut emissions, travel time and probably provide a substantial boost for patronage.

It doesn’t really have to be ‘chaos’ as such … I worked in HK from 2002 – 2004 and loved the Octopus system. For those who valued convenience, you could top up with a credit card, for those who wanted to protect their privacy, you could just cash up a generic card at the subway station. They could be used on the bus, trams, trains, subways, 7-11s, Starbucks and even some McDonalds – super convenient.

I was in Beijing from 2005 and watched them go from a paper based ticket system to a smart card system where you could use the same smart card for bus and subway. It was a little bit clunky at first but certainly not chaotic and it was very convenient.

The HK Octopus card could be swiped without taking it out of your bag – I used to have it in the pocket of one of my backpacks and just swipe the pocket over the reader as I went in and out.

I’m looking forward to Canberra finally having similar technology for its bus system!

How is that a ‘problem’ – if it is then its a problem with any system where cards/tickets are used.

Why the negativity ? It seems like the natural progression to me.

Why don’t they have the really powerful active RFID tags so just getting on the bus is enough? Now swiping on or off, it just detects that you are on the bus continuously between two stops and charges you for it.

Then, if we can use the same tag for our cars immobiliser, work pass, medicare card, etc….

It’s hard to imagine why they would need people to tag off under our fare structre.

What irks me is how every city that uses Smartcards makes false claims about how you don’t even have to take it out of your wallet or purse. That would be true if this was 1990. If you have more than one prox card in your wallet or purse, then you will have to take them out and scan them individually, as they can and do conflict with each other.

Any doctors care to insert my smart card into my wrist? And an iphone into the other one? Basically I’m aiming for Neuromancer style technology because

a) I like the look

b) I keep losing my phone and bus pass!

About time we got this here in Canberra, on a side note, why has it taken so damn long for Australian cities to adopt innovative new technologies like this?