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Action for Public Transport (N.S.W.) Inc.

"Tcard", equalised fares, nearer but shrouded in mystery

posted Tuesday 30 November 2004
Sydney's electronic transport ticket, the "Tcard", will be trialled on commuters in the inner western suburbs early in 2005. The school student trial will also be extended, according to briefing information provided to stakeholders by the Tcard design team on 22 November 2004.

The commuter trial will be confined to about 2000 passengers and will apply to trains, ferries, State Transit buses, and at least one private bus operator. The "contactless" ticket must be passed adjacent to a reading machine at the beginning and end of every trip, including "tagging off" when alighting from buses. This requirement to tag-off is understood to have caused significant disruptions in Perth, where it was recently trialled. The Tcard will be available from a limited number of third party sales outlets during the Sydney trial. Only a limited number of fare types will be loaded onto the Tcard for the trial.

Sydney's second, larger, trial for school students, commencing in January 2005, will involve 300 000 students, 2400 privately-owned buses and 1500 schools. The students will not be required to tag-off as there is no intent to measure their distance travelled.

The first new fares will also be introduced early in the new year. The Pensioner Excursion Ticket (PET) will rise in price from $1.10 to $2.50, but will cover a much larger geographical area including that served by private buses. It will cover the Sydney Metropolitan area but not the "Outer" metropolitan area. Seniors only making short trips will be provided with the necessary advance information so that they may opt for cheaper alternatives.

The new ticket and fares represent the first implementation of the recommendations of the Parry and Unsworth inquiries. The Tcard operating area will be phased in up until 2007 and will ultimately extend to the limits of the CityRail train network and its feeder bus connections to such places as Port Stevens and Crookwell.

The Tcard design team has had extensive discussions with the private bus industry regarding the new fares, tickets, and contract areas. The level of communication with public transport users has been disappointing and there has not been the promised consultation, except for public invitations for submissions to the above inquiries and to the annual Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) fares review. The above information is from written notes taken at the briefing. The possibility of errors is acknowledged.



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