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

Tcard Concerns

posted Tuesday 28 February 2006
Action for Public Transport has no objection to a Tcard or similar Smart Card for fare payment if it is planned, introduced and operated properly, but we fear that is not the case with the current project.

Our concerns are:

1. That the system appears to be designed for the benefit of the government, the operators and the bank holding the money. As with the bus contracts, the needs and wishes of passengers appear to be the least concern.

2. That the travelling public is not being involved as a true stakeholder. There have been many "consultations", but they have all been along the lines of "This is what we are going to do. Any questions?", instead of "Please help us design the system the way you would like it." There is no commuter consultative committee involved in the planning.

3. That the technical part of the system may be unreliable. That is, that cards may not be read properly, that fares may not be recorded or charged accurately, and that the dozens of “what if?’ questions may not have been addressed and resolved. APT has no knowledge of whether the computer processes work properly or not, but anecdotal evidence suggests that there have been problems.

4. That Tcard will charge fares only by distance, that is, single fares or TravelTens and FerryTens, and that zone fares provided by the popular TravelPass tickets will be lost. It seems that TravelPasses do not suit the contractual arrangements between the Ministry of Transport and the private buses, regardless of how convenient they are for the public. Tcard will provide integrated ticketing but not integrated fares.

5. That there has been no decision, or none that we know of, on how to calculate fares for users of rail weeklies or longer-term season tickets. At present, the discount on such tickets increases both as the length of the journey increases and as the term of the ticket increases. When the system designers are asked, “Can the system do such-and-such?”, they reply, “Yes, it can do anything you want.” When asked again, “But WILL it do such-and-such?”, they reply, “Nobody has made a decision about that yet.”

6. That the take-up rate of Tcard by the public will not be as high as the Ministry hopes. This is mainly of concern with buses, where people buying fares from the driver are a frustrating and expensive cause of delay and congestion. APT is not aware of what the Ministry's target percentage is, nor what an acceptable percentage might be. However, if people don't buy TravelTens or TravelPasses now, when all the money goes towards the fares, they won't buy a Tcard, where some of the money goes into a deposit.

7. That magnetic stripe tickets will be withdrawn, and that all users will either have to buy a Tcard, or pay cash to the driver. One cannot but help draw similarities with motorists being funnelled into the Cross City Tunnel.

8. That a statement of “Objectives of the System” may not have been written and that it may not be possible to monitor compliance with any objectives.

9. That quantitative success criteria may not have been pre-determined, so that a success or a failure may not be able to be objectively assessed. We fear that it will be like the cross-city tunnel - whatever user figure occurs will be judged "OK in the circumstances - it's early days yet". What is the Ministry's pre-determined success criteria? Have objective success criteria been pre-determined for: Boarding speed? Technical reliability? Accuracy of fare calculation? User acceptance?

10. That implementation is so long delayed. The trial in the Inner West was supposed to have started in early 2005 but has not started yet. This trial is to cover (a) selected STA bus routes, (b) selected private bus routes, (c) selected SFC ferry routes, (d) selected railway stations, and (e) selected customers. There has been no mention of private ferries in the trial so far. Continual time and cost over-runs do not inspire confidence.



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