After a whole pile of news about integrated ticketing at the end of last year, things have gone quiet in recent times. I have been assured that progress is being made (I wonder why it is that we get suspicious about public transport projects being forgotten about if we don’t hear regularly about their progress?) and that the system will be partially operational by the time of the Rugby World Cup – whatever partially operational means in real terms. Perhaps the smart-card will only work on the train, but not buses, or on some buses but not others, or on some train routes but not others. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see there.
But when we think about what “integrated ticketing” actually means, in terms of the project that Auckland actually needs, there are two distinct parts in my mind:
- A new fares policy. This is probably going to be zone based, should allow free transfers so you buy “time based” tickets allowing unlimited travel within a certain period of time – rather than based on each trip that you make. This stuff is very much policy based, will require plenty of public consultation and engagement, but isn’t necessarily that expensive – as all you really need to actually ‘do’ is make decisions on what ticketing options you’ll have.
- The integrated ticketing system. This is all the computer “stuff” that will sit behind the scenes – actually making the fares policy work. You don’t need much public consultation here as really we generally couldn’t care less about what computer programming language is used etc. etc. We’re obviously going to have a card, obviously going to have readers of that card and so forth.
Probably the most important thing about this distinction between the two parts of this project is that you should do part one first. There’s no point doing all the hard work behind the scenes unless you’ve settled on the fare policy that you’re wanting to implement. Simply taking our existing ticketing system and applying a smart-card to it (plus ensuring that the card can be used on all services) will obviously be of a benefit. Boarding times will be faster, it will be multi-modal and multi-operator – but many of the other benefits that are essential to actually achieving the goals that we want (such as making transfers easier so we can properly implement the Regional Public Transport Plan) will only happen once we have other aspects of the system in place – like free transfers, zone based ticketing, 2 hour tickets and so forth.
If we were to implement the technical side of things before we’ve sorted out a simplification/improvement of the existing ticketing system, then effectively we are ensuring that much of the technical stuff will have to be done again (the software part rather than the hardware part one would hope) once we eventually do get around to fixing the fares policy. This back-to-front approach seems to have been one contributing factor to why the Myki card in Melbourne overran its budget by around $350 million. Crikey, that’s about seven times the total budget of what we have to play with here in Auckland.
Making matters even more complicated here is the fact that while all this is going on, NZTA are also trying to create a “national standard” for integrated ticketing systems across the whole country – so that your pass in Auckland could also be used in Wellington, Christchurch or wherever. There was a paper about this presented at NZTA’s March 2010 board meeting, but I have no idea what was contained in that paper as NZTA are incredibly secretive about what they publish on their website when it comes to board papers (I imagine Auckland Transport will end up being the same, sigh). At a guess, it seems as though a group of interested parties in establishing this national standard is being formed – and not only will they be discussing the technical behind the scenes stuff – but they’re also interested in the customer/user side of things, which leads me to think that some sort of nationwide fares policy might be on the cards.
Somewhat ironically, given their rather malicious history of involvement in Auckland’s integrated ticketing project’s history, it seems as though Snapper are taking a bit of a leadership role in trying to ensure that we don’t start on the technical stuff until we’ve sorted the fares policy, and also that it’s critical for users of public transport users to be involved in the policy side of things. I’m very wary of giving them too much credit, given their rather chequered history when it comes to integrated ticketing in Auckland, but I agree in this particular circumstance that we have to sort out the policy first, we have to ensure that the policy is done properly with broad consultation with a range of interested parties – but perhaps most importantly with people at the coal-face: those who actually ride the bus, train of ferry each day.
So what does all of this mean? Well to be honest I’m pretty worried that we’re going to end up with a pretty half-arsed outcome of simply “smart-carding” our current system, but with the obvious gain that the new card will be multi-modal and multi-operator. While that would certainly be a step in the right direction, it is not the final result that we want – which is a completely revamped fares system, and a world-class technical side that makes it happen. Furthermore, I am worried that if we do things “back to front”, getting stuck in to the technical side before we’ve sorted out the policy, the whole thing is going to turn into an over-priced disaster.
But at the same time, I still think that it’s essential we have a multi-modal, multi-operator system in place for the Rugby World Cup next year. We are literally going to be the laughing stock of the world when tourists turn up to catch a bus with a pass they bought and get told it’s for the wrong bus company, or they get told their day pass they bought on the train can’t be used on any bus. Or that their pass is valid on these four colours of bus, but not on those other three. It will be a joke. So we need something in place for that event to make life simple.
Perhaps the solution is a simple paper-based integrated system, based around the current fare structures but completely multi-modal and multi-operator – but without the fancy and expensive smart-card for which we won’t have a proper fares policy in place for at that stage. This is certainly a non-ideal outcome, as it’s utterly disgraceful that it has taken this long to get this far on integrated ticketing, but perhaps it’s the best of a bunch of bad choices for now?
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I am worried about this as well. I have seen nothing in the media that says that the ‘integrated ticketing’ for auckland will actually include an integrated fares policy.
Yes, I think that is actually the goal, simply to replace all the existing cards with one card…
It funny reading those old Snapper posts I did, I a lot more relaxed about it now (don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good and all that) and we are going to get Thales here which will be cheaper for those in the know…
I do worry about this getting pushed and pushed and costs rising due to the NZTA making it a NZ wide issue but that remains to be seen…
I see in this Progress Report on transport infrastructure development around the city, on Page 34, it does refer to the project as the “Auckland Integrated Fare Scheme (AIFS) and Smartcard Automated Fare Collection (SAFC)”.
I’d call that encouraging.
However, not so encouraging, on page 35, is this:
Issues/Risks:
[…]
STAKEHOLDERS
• External factors outside the project will lead tenderers to reconsider their participation in
the tender and result in their withdrawal and the failure of the tender.
What’s behind that?
Hmmm….. good question Andrew. I guess identifying risks doesn’t mean they are actually necessarily that likely. I guess it’s a worry that all the politics will annoy Thales so much that they’ll just not bother with the whole thing any more.
Surely the contract would have a financial plenty attached to backing out, otherwise it isn’t much of a contract…
I know I’ve talked about this before, but I think ARTA have the perfect model already in use with the Northern Pass. It provides time-based, unlimited transfer travel within two zones of the Shore (the inner city area forming a defacto third zone). It is paper based and in use now, and perhaps most importantly it is ‘layered’ over the various other ticketing options, meaning people have choice around what suits them the best plus the operators presumably don’t feel like their business is being too heavily interfered with.
But my question is this: what legal or administrative changes were required to give the North Shore it’s own integrated ticketing system? I know there were some novel arrangements with the various operator franchises once the busway came on line, but in general the Northern Pass system seemed to slip into place quite easily, no legal battles, political turmoil or tit-for-tat opinion pieces in the Herald. Did this require changes in legislation or is it based on gentleman agreement between ARTA and the northern operators? Is anyone aware of any reports or evaluations on the pass, committee minutes or the like? For Auckland this seems to be uncharacteristically low key.
Really if this can be done for the North Shore, why can the model not simply be replicated for the west, south and east also? What is to stop ARTA rolling out the ‘MAXX Pass’ over the next three months?
(Oh BTW Jarbs, not sure Myki is ‘back to front’, Melbourne already had a very streamlined and effective integrated fare structure and there was very little that needed to be done in that regard. In fact about a year before the Myki project started in earnest they streamlined things further by removing the third zone. They also had a perfectly adequate, if elderly, swipe card system. The real tragedy is that Myki was only needed to replace the ageing Metcard system that had come to the end of it’s design life and had become failure prone and increasingly uneconomic to maintain. Somehow a relatively straightforward ‘technical’ replacement of the old magnetic swipe equipment with modern RF equipment became a highly politicised ‘whizz-bang’ throw-tons-of-money-at-it debacle.)
Andrew, from what you cite, this seems to be related to process BEFORE the tender was accepted? Don’t have the time to read the document you quoted from, but certainly once you have been selected, you are not “the tenderer” anymore – it’s a different contractual relationship.
Also, Jarbuy – I remember reading somewhere (don’t knwo where) that the intention was to have some sort of “paper integrated ticket” in place by the RWC. I.e. no swipe card, but at least you might be able to buy a ticket on a bus on the Shore valid for the ferry and valid for a connecting bus to Eden Park.
Of course that is only if my memory serves me right AND if they manage to implement that in time.
I remember reading on many occasions that we were going to have a paper-based integrated ticket in operation by the end of 2008.
i don’t remember seeing anywhere releases of arta talking about zoning or fare structure
the only thing said on and on is smart card it , tag in and tag off. it takes off the fare from the stored value
well this doesn’t make an change to existing system
if i go from Henderson to botany and transfer at K road wills till pay the same fare what i pay the only difference is i have a card, just don’t see any benefit of this.
but on the other hand if i have NZ bus weekly for $45 will do the travel easy to manakau or onenhungs
ARTA’s Regional Public Transport Plan relies upon encouraging people to transfer between services – from feeder bus to train and so forth. The best way to make that happen is through a zone based system.
i agree
Quote:
//Perhaps the solution is a simple paper-based integrated system, based around the current fare structures but completely multi-modal and multi-operator – but without the fancy and expensive smart-card for which we won’t have a proper fares policy in place for at that stage. This is certainly a non-ideal outcome, as it’s utterly disgraceful that it has taken this long to get this far on integrated ticketing, but perhaps it’s the best of a bunch of bad choices for now?//
Concur. A simple paper-based system can and does work, as I could show from a couple of European cities I have visited, and Edinburgh itself. All you need for the RWC is the current $14 pass, but provided in a scratchcard format – simply mark out the day you want to travel one. I have been in AKL the last few days, have used the current dayticket, and it works fine. The cards need to be sold from dairies etc, to alleviate the problems of trying to sell them on a bus. Fix *that* logistical problem and you should be away laughing.
I think you need more options about unlimited travel though. If you’re only wanting to make a 1 stage bus trip into town, a 2 stage return train trip and then a one stage bus trip back home there should be something like a $7 “inner area” unlimited travel day pass on all modes I think.