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

NEWS RELEASE: Opal Card Fails the Integration Test

posted Monday 30 September 2013
A transport consumer group has labelled as “bollocks” a statement by the Minister that transfers from one mode to another, bus to train for instance, will not count as a continued journey because it would be “unfair”.

Secretary of Action for Public Transport (APT), Allan Miles, said the whole point of an integrated fare system is that a person can make a journey consisting of more than one “trip” without incurring a penalty for having to change modes.

”Without that feature,” Mr Miles said, “Opal is not a very smart card, just an electronic purse.”

Mr Miles said that all fares on public transport, as on taxis, comprise a flag-fall and a distance component. “You pay more if you have to change to another vehicle along the way,” he said. “Train fares have always allowed a change without penalty,” he said, “because you don’t leave the station to change trains.”

“Most people would choose a cheaper ride on a single-mode journey if one was available,” said Mr Miles, “but the transport network is not designed that way.” “The transport authority encourages people to change from buses to trains, or from ferries to buses,” he said.

APT welcomes the minister’s announcement that bus-to-bus transfers will not incur a flag-fall penalty with Opal. “The second trip will be treated as an extension of the first,” Mr Miles said. “But this is nothing new. It has been happening at certain bus interchange points for decades,” he said, “and all with paper tickets.”

“The inclusion of penalty-free bus transfers in the Opal card shows that the minister at least understands the principle,” he said, “and that it is technically possible.”

Mr Miles said that the smart card tickets in other cities, including Brisbane and Melbourne, charge the fare by total journey distance, not by what you ride in.

“The fundamental difference,” Mr Miles said, “is that only in Sydney can you still buy a “train ticket” or a “ferry ticket”. Everywhere else passengers just buy a “travel ticket”, and the fare is the same for tram, train, bus or ferry.

Mr Miles said that the years of work by all recent transport ministers in creating a modern integrated transport network out of patchwork nineteenth century fiefdoms is starting to come unstuck, and the current Minister must ensure that the passenger remains at the centre of everything that she does.

CONTACT: Allan Miles 9516-1906



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