An interesting article by Brian Rudman on the Snapper/Thales integrated ticketing fiasco in today’s Herald:
After the big spin, Infratil’s a loser
I hadn’t thought of veteran Auckland public relations man Cedric Allan as the Grand Old Duke of York. Not until he took on his latest campaign to try to persuade Aucklanders that Infratil’s Snapper smartcard had won the battle to bring integrated public transport ticketing to the region.
For his sake, I hope he hasn’t staked his pension plan on it, because even if he gets 10,000 Aucklanders marching up and down the steps of Infratil’s buses waving their Snapper cards, rival French electronic giant Thales has won the fight.
A week ago it signed an $87 million contract with the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, with Government blessing, to provide integrated electronic ticketing for city buses, trains and ferries.
Mr Allan’s client, Snapper Services, was part of that tender process and lost the fight. It then challenged the decision legally and politically. Despite these rearguard actions, it still lost.
But like a punch-drunk boxer, Infratil has risen to its knees, pulled out the cellphone and called in Grand Old Cedric to save the day. On the eve of its rival signing the contract, he pumped out a press statement declaring, “Snapper Services Ltd moved today to clear up apparent confusion about emerging competition to introduce electronic ticketing for public transport in Auckland, with the objective of having integrated ticketing on most Auckland public transport by the Rugby World Cup in 2011.
As Jeremy talked about in his post yesterday, clearly Snapper/Infratil are in a pretty sticky situation having lost out of the integrated ticketing contract for Auckland. By the sounds of this article, Snapper over-extended themselves when rolling out in Wellington and needed to get the Auckland contract to make the investment worthwhile. I guess that explains why Snapper has been so persistent in trying to get the contract, and has tried pretty much every trick in the book to get ARTA or NZTA to change their minds.
It will be interesting to see where things go to from here. The “next step” we’re all really waiting for is NZTA to finalise its standards for integrated ticketing system, as I think that will determine what role – if any – Snapper has in Auckland’s future ticketing. If, as is indicated above, all operators will have to use the Thales system, then all I can really see Snapper doing is offering a “card option”. Perhaps that is fine for them, as they will be able to focus on using Snapper for retail sales, as that’s supposedly where the profit is. However, if people aren’t using their Snapper Cards on public transport then there might not be too many reasons for them to have yet another card in their pockets for small retail purchases.
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