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

APTNSW COMMENT: "Pre-Pay" expansion will benefit frequent bus users but disadvantage casuals

posted Wednesday 18 February 2009

The imminent expansion of Sydney Buses' Pre-Pay ticket policy will increase bus average speeds but, in APTNSW's opinion, will make using buses more difficult for occasional users, including locals and tourists alike. Sydney's complex fares policy won't help.

All Sydney's CBD bus stops will be converted to Pre-Pay by the end of 2009. No tickets will be sold by bus drivers during business hours (7am to 7pm, Mon to Fri) in the CBD. All passengers will have to have bought their tickets beforehand. The conversion will commence at Wynyard in March, spreading to all stops by December.

While commuters and frequent users will benefit from faster boarding, week-day passengers without tickets will have to go to a retail outlet. There they'll have to negotiate the purchase of a ticket with sales people who may be not be familiar with Sydney's geography, let alone its bus network. It is likely sales staff will present the prospective passenger with a complex table of fares and tickets, similar to that in current Pre-Pay brochures, and ask "Which ticket do you want?". Any difficulty is likely to be exacerbated by the passenger's own unfamiliarity with the bus services.

Here is yet another reason for overhauling and simplifying Sydney's complex public transport fares policy, something APTNSW has been lobbying for for more than a decade.

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