Smartcards for Canberra buses moving forward

fabforty said :

If the ACT Government wants to be truly progressive and if this is supposed to be a really smart card, it should also enable people to pay for parking as well as catch buses.

Well Perth are moving this way, the pay machines at the Train Stations let you tag on & the all day parking fee of $2 is deducted from the smartrider. You then get a ticket to display on your dash.

The Perth ticketing system works fine.

My fave Perth pubic transport initiative is… the CATS. The buses are free in the “Central Area Transport Service”. Adelaide used to have the “Bee-Line bus” that did something similar, but I’m not sure if it’s still going now they’ve extended the tram lines.

If the ACT Government wants to be truly progressive and if this is supposed to be a really smart card, it should also enable people to pay for parking as well as catch buses. Think of it, no more scrabbling around in the dashboard for change every day, no-one trying to break into the pay machines, no-one needing to be paid to clear the machines daily, just a card you can top-up conveniently at lots of shopfronts or online. Just swipe at the car-park entrance and exit.

You know we can. Canberra is the right size to be able to do something really innovative with its public transport system.

You can keep some of the people satisfied some of the time……….

If it works as well as the Oyster card in London, bring it on.

I really never understood how Canberra couldn’t make a zone system work. They do it in Hobart and it works fine. Hobart has at least 3 major population centres (Hobart city, Glenorchy, Eastern Shore) which are serviced by their metro bus system, and the zoning system works. Yes, some people have to pay more to travel on the bus, but such is life. It works in reverse also, if I live in the city and wanted to travel to one of the regional centres, I would have to pay the bigger zoned fare. This seems like a fair system to me.

I would also like to note, I see the Sydney smart card system was mentiond above. That was ditched several months ago, as a $22 million flop (can’t remember the exact reason). I hope we do better than them.

So by your logic, ML-585, you’re saying that my monthly ticket, which currently costs me around $90, would cost me $7.40 x 30 days, or $220?

Icepoet said :

ML-585, that was not true. Bruce was actually considered part of the grey (crossover zone) and hence SHOULD have been charged as the one fare.

Isn’t that what I said? The suburb of Bruce including AIS and Calvary Hospital were located in the Central Zone – College St and UC were in the shared (North/Central) zone. In any event you should have just asked the driver for a Central Zone transfer ticket. Basically the zones were structured around the interchanges (with a few exceptions) – any travel from City to Belconnen Interchanges would be contained within the Central Zone; only once you travelled beyond Belconnen Interchange would you be in the North Zone. Gungahlin was where the system has its major failings.

astrojax said :

$7.40??? that’s outrageous – i was thinking the fares would be around the $3.80 they are currently for a lengthy kind of transferred trip, with a short hop being maybe $2 – $2.50

would this still be supplemented by weekly tickets though? i don’t know…

Clearly you don’t know. Read my post again. $7.40 would be the maximum daily fare – so regardless of how much travel is undertaken in a day, no more than the current daily ticket fare would be charged. This is how the Perth system works. This can be extended to calculate weekly, monthly and school term fares.

The Perth system worked well, though I moved here shortly after it was brought in. It was especially useful for paying the right amount with the zoning system they have there. Canberra doesnt have zones, so…. meh?

“Bruce and Braddon were both in the Central zone so travel between the two would have been a single-zone fare.”

ML-585, that was not true. Bruce was actually considered part of the grey (crossover zone) and hence SHOULD have been charged as the one fare, however 90% of the bus drivers I encountered had no idea which drop off point was in which zone themselves – hence the confusion. If the bus drivers couldn’t even get it right, how could the general public be expected to work within that system? As a 17 year old who was told you pay 2 fares or don’t catch the bus by many, many drivers – what choice did I have? The few times I had complained to ACTION about issues with buses I was treated with disdain and contempt.

So, yes it was difficult for me and you are right, it would have been equally as difficult for those people who lived just inside opposing zones and only needed to travel a short distance. Hence my argument, zoning will not work in canberra.

I don’t think zoning would be on the cards here again. It really only works when you have a single hub from which all or most routes radiate. Even then, people going from just over one side of a boundary to just over the other, are a problem for it.

Tag on/off facilitates a distance based, or more likely flagfall plus distance, based fare system which is probably the most fair for users.

$7.40??? that’s outrageous – i was thinking the fares would be around the $3.80 they are currently for a lengthy kind of transferred trip, with a short hop being maybe $2 – $2.50

would this still be supplemented by weekly tickets though? i don’t know…

Icepoet said :

Does anyone remember when they tried to impliment bus zones around 10 years ago? It was a disaster. I remember living in Braddon and having to pay 2 bus fares to travel to university (at Bruce), simply because Bruce was zoned into the Belconnen area. Even then it depended on the individual bus driver whether I was charged for crossing the zone or not as it was right on the border of the City and Belconnen zones.

Bruce and Braddon were both in the Central zone so travel between the two would have been a single-zone fare. But to travel from Mitchell to Dickson would be an all-zone fare. This is why the zonal system was a failure – inequity.

But with a smart-card system linked to GPS, a fair fare system based on distance of travel or duration of travel (time) could be developed. For instance the 90-minute transfer could be replaced by a fare based on time: $2 for under 60minutes, $2.50 for 60-90 minutes and $0.50 for each additional half-hour; trip ends if ticket not tagged on after 90 minutes; maximum daily fare applies – $4.50 if no travel in peak period, $7.40 otherwise.

Tag on\Tag off doesn’t imply zoning, its more the sentence “The new ticketing system, due to commence in the second half of 2010, is modelled on Perth’s successful SmartRider system [which does use zoning]” that has people thinking about zones.

ACTION’s zoning system certainly was poor, a fact that probably had something to do with its scrapping…

Requiring PT users to tag on and off a service enables a much more flexible pricing system, but doesn’t imply zoning. Technically it allows a very accurate distance component to be included in the fare structure if the operator wishes. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like they do, but it’s a start.

depends on how you zone, i rekkun – needs some creativity that allows for types of trips rather than arbitrary hard lines marking spaces…

this couldn’t work, and hasn’t as noted, with the several hubs system in canberra, so something like the current transfer system, but somehow stepped fares for multitudes of transfers, and in any case some minimal amount between most and least paid anyway, so a trip of a few stops doesn’t sound too prohibitive…

The ‘zones’ idea works terribly for Queanbeyan already, even worse for Queanbeyan-Canberra bus trips (but this is due to NSW regulations that barely make sense in Metro-Sydney being applied in a regional area).

Zoning Canberra (again) is going to be a terrible idea to try and sell to people who know how the Intertown system functions currently.

Having read Stanhope’s media release, it looks like the intention is to retain the existing flat fare structure and use the system to record when users get on and off. This information is useful for transport planning but it doesn’t appear to do much else, at least initially.

Great minds think alike SheepGroper. 😉

Bugger. Pipped by Icepoet.

Action buses already tried a zone system, Tuggers was in one, Belco was the other and Civic/Woden was the third. People still complained.

Does anyone remember when they tried to impliment bus zones around 10 years ago? It was a disaster. I remember living in Braddon and having to pay 2 bus fares to travel to university (at Bruce), simply because Bruce was zoned into the Belconnen area. Even then it depended on the individual bus driver whether I was charged for crossing the zone or not as it was right on the border of the City and Belconnen zones.

I don’t think that system lasted very long at all and while I’d be happy to pay a fare for the distance travelled, zoning is never going to work in the ACT. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who to be penalised simply for living on the wrong side of an imaginary line.

I’ve also used the Perth system (having recently moved back to Canberra from there), I wasnt a regular user but i did use it it worked just fine. You would sometimes have to queue for maybe 15 seconds to tag off at the train stations in peak hour, but it wasnt a big deal, and anyway that won’t be a problem here in Canberra.

It’s about time. This should satisfy those that complain that the fare’s the same whether they go 3 stops or 30.

Funny how that doesn’t stop the complaining. 🙂

Queensland Transport have a “Go Card ” system that sounds Identical.
Worked sensationally for me , but there were many gripes of discontent ….
There was implementation problems iirc … But they were sorted fairly quickly.
They use a zoned type system ie the more zones you travel through the more you get charged.
If you failed to swipe off , you were charged a flat $5 fee .

Like I said fantastic for some , crap for others .

I like my bike commute better than being crammed on a train / bus anyway 🙂

sounds like the oyster card in london? brilliant!

i am all for user pays – especially when it comes to public transport – flat rate is BS.

I’ve used the system in Perth and it is great – but the other great things about the system in Perth was that you could actually get on a bus in peak hour, it was comfortable, they have good security and it was an affordable mode of transport.

If they brought that in here I might consider going back to catching a bus, until then, my car is much more reliable.

Sounds like a way to start charging fares per unit distance or time rather than the current flat rate. I can understand some in inner suburbs aren’t keen on the flat rate, but for those in the boonies it at least isn’t a further disincentive to public transport.

it works very well in honkers, but i agree with ian that they’d have to look at tagging on and off to precipitate some sort of zoning fares thing, which would be needed.

but the concept of going into any little convenience store or many other places and simply being able to pay to top up the card is brilliant – and from memory most tagging stations tell you your balance…

I absolutely adore the Suica smart card system in Tokyo, hopefully they don’t stuff this up. And more importantly, I hope it can be linked to any future smartcards in Melbourne (whose trams are going to be run by a company that uses the Octopus smartcard system in Hong Kong), Sydney etc, to make a national network where you can just hope on and off any public transport without every having to pay for a ticket. Well, I can dream…

Yes, let’s use the same flawed overkill technology used by megacities for our rural wagon network.

Bring on the clones.

No experience with Perth buses, but the tagging on/off works fine in Singapore.

One thing it will do is enable distance based fares, so the trip down the road might cost $1 and the Conder-City trip $5 for example, which is more equitable than the current flat fares. In fact it would be very hard for ACTION to justify the current fare structure once they have installed such technology.

Having said that, I’m guessing the TWU will find some objection to the tagging off, and the government will fold and end up with some half baked compromise.

Have a look at their arrangements maybe, Caf?

http://www.transperth.wa.gov.au/TicketsandFares/SmartRider/TagOnTagOff/tabid/94/Default.aspx

Won’t the tag on / tag off process delay people in boarding and alighting Transperth services?

Tagging on takes approximately 300 milliseconds (or .3 of a second). Compared to the current MultiRider validation (of 1-2 seconds) this is significantly quicker.

Current technical specifications allow for up to 35 people to pass through the fare gates in a one minute time period. Buses have card processors at both the front and back doors to ensure quicker departure and tagging off times. Slower boarding and disembarking times may occur while the system is still new and people are adapting to a new behaviour. Please be patient during this period.

Will I need to tag on and tag off each service?

Yes, in most circumstances. Tagging on and off each service doesn’t mean you are charged each time, the transferring function that exists with the current ticketing system still exists with the new SmartRider system. When you transfer onto another service and tag on (within the 2 or 3 hour free transfer period) SmartRider will recognise this as a transfer.

What will happen if I forget to tag on and off?

The new system operates on a tag on / tag off basis. This means when you first board you tag on with your SmartRider card at the processor and when you alight you Tag off at the processor. If a card is not tagged off when alighting a Transperth service, a default fare will be charged the next time you tag on.

The default fare will be the cost of a fare to the final destination of the bus, train or ferry service that you have boarded. For train services, the default fare is automatically set to 4-zones.The Default fare exists to ensure all passengers tag on and tag off at the beginning and end of their journey to pay for their travel on Transperth services.

Seems like overkill to me. They already know where demand is – those buses that don’t even stop for people waiting, cos they are already full.

They have huge demand in many morning peak services, and they don’t have any extra buses to put on.

So this smart card data might give them lovely graphs for their annual report but spending the money on more buses would probably do more to actually meet demand.

“Bus users will be required to tag-on and tag-off buses,…

Oh yeah, that’ll be REALLY efficient. Smooth move.