Transport Canberra (TC) deputy director-general Ben McHugh has his team working around the clock to resolve the issues by tomorrow. Photo: James Coleman.
Transport Canberra has apologised for the disastrous launch of the new MyWay+ ticketing system and committed to ironing out all of today’s bugs in time for tomorrow.
A six-week trial period (during which travel on public transport was free) came to an end this morning (27 November), when commuters and school kids began tapping onto buses and light rail with either new MyWay+ cards, Mastercard or Visa bank cards, or a QR code on the MyWay+ app on their smartphone.
Except it was hardly that smooth for everyone.
The directorate has received a deluge of complaints today from customers who found the machines refused to scan their cards or QR codes, or only scanned once either to tap-on or tap-off.
Up to 18 (or 25 per cent) of the ticket validators at the major interchanges and light-rail stops weren’t working this morning either.
The issues prompted TC executives to front a media conference around noon today, where deputy director-general Ben McHugh apologised for the “teething troubles”.
“I apologise to anyone who was inconvenienced, absolutely, I do,” he said.
“This definitely was not our intention and we’re working hard to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Mr McHugh said the six-week trial had returned good results, but there was no way to be sure the new system would perform perfectly when rolled out en masse.
“The system was ready for launch, and we knew there were going to be things that would only be exposed once we put it into service. Today’s just the first day we’ve had 40,000 people use it.”
Transport Minister Chris Steel with a new MyWay+ card. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
The system is the result of a $64 million, 10-year deal with tech firm NEC Australia, and Mr McHugh said TC is working “around the clock with NEC” to fix the issues.
NEC vice-president of technology and innovation Ayala Domani said it was “always a big change to implement a system like this” and reiterated that NEC will continue to release updates “every couple of weeks” as new bugs rear their heads.
“So yes, we’re working through some of the teething challenges that have been mentioned … and we will continue to listen to customer feedback, to driver feedback and we will continuously update the system. This is a long-term partnership.”
Mr McHugh said the commitment “at the moment is to make sure the bugs we’ve identified this morning will be corrected before tomorrow”.
For now, there remains no financial penalty for not tapping off.
“People who have tapped on but haven’t been able to tap off will only be charged the minimum fare for that trip for that day. We’ve got that in place and we’ll hold that in place until we’re comfortable to release it.”
Earlier in the week, there were also complaints people were struggling to source new MyWay+ cards from outlets like newsagencies.
Mr McHugh says TC is also working to rectify this.
“We’ve had a lot of feedback from the community about not being able to get access to cards,” he said.
“We’re working closely with NEC to make sure all of the retailers are fully stocked and that there are enough cards in the system. But even as of this morning, we sold another 2000 cards before 9 am.”
Up to 18 ticket validators across the ACT were also down this morning. Photo: James Coleman.
Meanwhile, more than $9.5 million remains attached to old MyWay cards, with only $50,000 transferred to new MyWay+ accounts since yesterday.
“We really encourage the community to dig through their drawers, go through their shelves, find their old cards and transfer that money across,” Mr McHugh said.
“We want that money used on our transport system and people using public transport.”
TC will hold onto the money for a minimum period of seven years to allow people to go through the reclaim process, after which “we will make a decision whether to continue holding it.”
An ACT Labor election promise, ‘Fare-free Fridays’, will start as previously announced every Friday beginning 6 December.
Information on MyWay+ card retail locations, as well as transferring credit to a new MyWay+ account, is available on the Transport Canberra website.
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