Integrated Ticketing – what’s happening?

Back in July ARTA announced that Thales had won the contract to provide Auckland’s integrated ticketing system. This came after a rather nasty few months of uncertainty after the Regional Fuel Tax was cancelled in March. However, the announcement brought that uncertainty to a close (or so I thought), and it certainly made things sound like we weren’t going to end up with some sort of half-arse solution – even though the funding available for the project had been rather significantly reduced. Let’s recall what ARTA’s chairman, Rabin Rabindran, said about the system we’d be getting at the time:

“Boarding times will be faster for our customers because fares won’t have to be collected. The ticket will be a swipe on/ swipe off system. Faster boarding times will mean ARTA has the potential to put on more frequent services. Having a smartcard means ease of transfer for commuters between different bus operators, train and ferry services.

“An integrated ticketing system also has the potential to offer some very attractive fare reductions in comparison to cash purchase of tickets.

“The system will include automated gates, smartcard readers onboard buses and ferries, smartcard reload devices at selected rail and bus stations and ferry wharves, and the supply of all computer hardware, software, networks and communications”.

Mr Rabindran says the system will be similar to London’s Oyster system and Hong Kong’s Octopus system. Like Oyster, ARTA plans to initially implement core functions and progressively phase in additional functionality.

That all sounds pretty damn fantastic – exactly what Auckland needs. As far as I know, ARTA and NZTA together decided that the system offered by Thales, a French company with many years experience in creating integrated ticketing systems, was more worthy of the contract than the alternative that was put forward by Infratil – basically an extension of the Snapper Card system used on their bus services in Wellington. It was apparently a pretty intense battle between Thales and Infratil for the contract, but once Thales were awarded it Infratil (at the time) accepted that decision. This was after Infratil had challenged a previous decision by ARTA to award the contract to Thales on the grounds that it was biased and flawed. NZTA rejected that challenge – saying that it had absolutely no grounds.

So where does that leave things now? Well, for a start it really does seem as though Infratil was completely lying when they said they would accept that decision, and have subsequently been pushing the case (again) that Snapper should get the contract for integrated ticketing, rather than Thales. Secondly, the decision by ARTA and NZTA to choose Thales as the prefered supplier of Auckland’s integrated ticketing system is separate to NZTA’s decision to stump up the necessary funds to actually carry out this project. This second decision was meant to be made by NZTA some time within the last couple of weeks at their October meeting. My understanding is that the meeting took place, but no decision has yet been released.

This seems odd.

I have made my opinions on ARTA/NZTA’s decision to award the contract to Thales quite clear in the past. Ultimately, in my opinion the conflict of interest between Infratil running the ticketing system (through Snapper) and running a big chunk of the bus system (through NZ Bus) was just a recipe for disaster and I am glad that ARTA have instead chosen Thales for this critical project. This feeling has been strengthened over the last couple of weeks, largely due to the way that Infratil acted throughout the bus lockout. Imagine if some of their Snapper staff decided to “work to rule”, and in response they shut down the entire ticketing system, so that absolutely none of Auckland’s public transport was able to function? Talk about potential for an absolutely huge disaster!

I must say I am a little worried that NZTA is taking so long to release their decision. Did NZTA confirm the funding for Thales and Infratil is desperately trying to get them to reverse the decision, using their seemingly strong links with those in power? Or did NZTA backtrack on the numerous previous decisions, but are unwilling to release their decision with Infratil’s behaviour over the bus lockout fresh in everyone’s memory? I do wonder what’s going on with this, especially as we desperately need to get on with this project so that it can be completed by the time of the Rugby World Cup.

And if there’s one transport project we do desperately need for the Rugby World Cup, it’s integrated ticketing.

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