Despite my misgivings over the details of the HOP/Snapper rollout, it is worth celebrating the launch of the HOP card on North Star buses today.
I topped up my HOP card on Friday, as sometimes I catch the 5.05pm 005 bus and it’s usually operated by North Star. It will be interesting to see how the rollout of HOP goes today and – perhaps most particularly – tomorrow. Auckland Transport has certainly not held back in their marketing of the HOP card, so I am hopeful that it goes reasonably smoothly.
I’m keen on hearing about how things went today and how they’re going tomorrow with the HOP card rollout on North Star buses – both the good experiences and the less than good experiences. How much faster are the buses loading? Are people remembering to tag off? Are the bus entires wide enough to slip past someone paying with cash to get on with your HOP card? What happens if someone presents a Go Rider card?
One thing I have noticed is that the online balance tool doesn’t seem to be working. I added $20 to my card on Friday yet when I log in it says that there’s $0 on the card.
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Caught the North star city to Takapuna return today. I think I only saw me and my girlfriend use hop cards all trip. Most people used cash or northern passes, hence boarding was still slow, although it was very nice to skip the people waiting for change.
Taging feels slower than in Hong Kong
Hop tag off reminders are everywhere.
Are people remembering to tag off? we did. $2.04, Balance is only show when it falls below something less than $8 – $15. Not sure of the actual amount.
Are the bus entires wide enough to slip past someone paying with cash to get on with your HOP card? Yes but people tend to stand right in the middle of the isle so need to be asked to allow you past. Not a big deal.
What happens if someone presents a Go Rider card? Only saw this once, looked like the driver rejected it and he didn’t have any cash. Fortunately he had a friend he was meeting at the back of the bus that paid his fare in cash. Hopefully NZBus does not strand people tomorrow, this will make for very bad press.
My balance thing isn’t working either. This needs to be fixed as i was very worried when i checked and it told me i had no money on my card.
Hop will be awesome for the student heavy 274/277 routes as boarding will be much faster as most students will use hop (huge discount to be had).
Is the drivers conceal also a hop tag point?
I am a little concerned that unloading of buses with a single rear door will be slowed a little bit with most people using hop.
It will be interesting to see whether the official Thales equipment tags on/of quicker than the Snapper equipment that NZBus is currently using.
I’m in London now and had a chance to observe regular Oyster users versus a new user who shall remain nameless.
There are three approaches to using the card.
Some new users seem to want to swipe or wave their card at the reader and encounter problems.
Other users hold their card still over the readers as well as standing still themselves.
Experienced users hold hold their cards still over the readers but keep moving forward themselves and this keeps things moving quickest. I imagine it will take a while for Aucklanders to get the hang of this, and you may get a number of complaints while people keep trying the swipe or wave method.
Oh dear, absolute disaster on North Shore this morning. Tries to board at Constellation for the 881 Newmarket. They would not accept the old card and no way of changing to new card. Driver was adamant that we could not board. NZ Bus rep was on hand to commiserate and said it was ll the councils fault. I had to miss the Newmarket bus and eventually rode on a Ritchies bus to bottom of Fanshawe. Rang the Hop line and all they could say was go to Britomart to get new card. The Hop line is actually MAAX in disguise. They could not tell me anywhere to change them except Albany Mall and Britomart. Neither of these places are suitable to me. Operator did say there were other places but only at certain times and she had no idea where/when
Anyone got a list of swap out places?
Topping up your snapper card down here in Welly usually means the balance online does not update for 24 hours. Maybe the weekend extends that a few more hours? Sadly the London oyster card system runs rings around the snapper system in terms of up to date usage on your balance and so on. Maybe one day it will be an equal – well I can dream
I topped up mid last week. Yip its meant to be online after 24 hours
@Pete – luckily Auckland is only using Snapper as a stopgap system until the Thales system is up and running, until then it’s best to reserve judgement as to how slow or fast the system is in regards to updating online details and in regards to tagging on and off.
Sadly I’m in Welly so going to have to wait another 5 years for something more joined up than the present snapper system and its lack of up to date info online. Maybe Go Wellington could install a WIFI network at the railway station to allow for updates during the day of most bus journeys carried out (apart from say the 3 & 23 which don’t pass through the station)
Colleagues who come from the shore used it this morning and said everything went extreemly smoothly although one said it seemed like more people were paying by cash than usual.
Update on Hop card problems. Finally found someone in city that was swapping cards but they refused to accept mine as it is the old Yellow Pass and they will only accept the Go Rider cards. I tried to explain they were the same system and I sued this card every day up to Friday. Nope no swap out only Go Rider. Sounds like a broken record
Not sure what comes next
Wow you still have a Yellow Pass I haven’t seen one of those for years.
I have one of them! 😉 But honestly, I hate people who can’t make a decision for themselves, one of those HOP cards would be worth a few cents and they’re not willing to swap one for your card simply because it doesn’t say “Go Rider” on it. Pathetic.
Hi Ron
Let us know where you are and we’ll sort out a swap for you
Miki
Admin: Online balance shows in 24 hours- however money on the card is immediate as soon as you top up
That’s what I thought Sharon, hence my concern as I topped up on Friday around lunch time and yet on Sunday night the balance showed as zero. It still worked on my bus this morning though.
Admin, just curious – what is your card value if you use the Snapper website as opposed to the Hop one?
Cancel that – you can’t check your HOP card balances via the Snapper website.
I’m pretty sure you can – people elsewhere mentioned they had done this, the HOP card is a Snapper card afterall and at present all the backend is done by Snapper.
I can log in on the Snapper website, but it still shows my balance as zero.
Snippet of the reply to my Hop website query.
“We have been made aware of an issue with balance and transaction history displaying on the MyHop customer account page and have escalated this to our supplier for investigation.”
“In the meantime, you can check your balance by visiting a HOP retailers and asking for a card balance or transaction history. The reader on the bus will notify you if your HOP Card has a balance of less than seven trips or less than $12 HOP e-money.”
Just got onto the 875 (North Star) with my Wellington Snapper card. The balance showed up as 0.00 but it gave me the affirmative line of “Please remember to tag off.” (The Wellington version was originally “Please, don’t forget to tag off.”, it’s now just an affirmative beep.) Same voice as the Wellington Snapper (an actor I know).
The bus is about 40% full and I’ve seen a good few people use their HOP Cards already. One person at Takapuna has been told to go into the kiosk in Shore City, but is getting a free fare today.
Not sure about what’s happened to my Snapper balance but I’ll check on snapper.co.nz once I’ve tagged off.
Also wanted to use my Snapper on the Dominion Rd B-Line but the machines were covered up. The driver told me “June 4”.
Its quite hard to get any useful information about the hop card. I’ll try it now, to see what happens, but its quite disappointing.
1. What happens if I forget to tag off? I really couldn’t find it anywhere.
2. I sent an email to hop last week, and asked if I can use the Northern Passes on the card. No reply so far, no info on their website. They have dozens of people hanging around bus stops, all these posters, but no one is replying to emails?
The most annoying thing with the gorider card was that I couldn’t buy the northern pass with it, and after they cancelled the weekly pass (not the northern 7 day pass) there was no point in using it again.
I fear the same holds true for the hop card, only halfway implemented.
In Wellington, if you forget to tag off it charges you the maximum fare for the route (i.e. 3 stages, 4 stages, whatever it nay be).
I found information about the penalty on the HOP website: http://www.myhop.co.nz/About-HOP/Pages/3-Steps-To-Using-HOP.aspx. It is the same as Robbie said happens in Wellington, it charges you to the end of the route. There are so many posters on the bus though, it seems like it would be pretty hard to forget to tag off.
Note that it is the *cash* fare to the end of the route, so don’t forget to tag off even if your bus only goes the number of stages you are going anyhow. Otherwise you won’t get the Hop discount.
My hop card was working fine today on North Star except returning home from work tonight. Tsgged on OK front door but got a error message when I tagged off – rear door , tried 3 – 4 times same error. Hopefully its an error on the reader.
Good stuff guys.
You can register your HOP card on Snapper site technically.
You can use the wellington Snapper card on HOP system technically. It will work exactly the same way HOP card works.
Penalties will be charged if you forget to tag off. Its ridiculous that the info is not visible to the patrons.
By the way guys, make sure you check your card balances on a regular basis. Snapper system is known for charging you the wrong money in welly.
This HOP Snapper system is good except the teething issues- Wait until the Rugby World Cup travel pass comes in! Thats when I want to see what people thinks.
HOP begins. Sounds kind of like a B grade movie about a superhero who got bitten by a radioactive frog and now has all the powers of a frog.
I must admit I didn’t like the name HOP when it first came out, but it’s kinda grown on me now.
Used HOP card yesterday, and this morning from Takapauna. From what I could tell, most people were using HOP cards with only one or two showing up with GO RIDER, they were offered a free ride but both of them paid cash anyway. The driver said they had a one day grace period. Seems to be much faster than the old way, but as it was the first day, some people were probably a little slower than they might be and looking at the driver while doing it. Also noticed a few people putting their wallets up to the scanner, and worked well (I like this feature). One man did it, and it said “more than one card detected”, so he must have had 2 HOP cards in his wallet. It will ask you to check your balance if it is less than $12, which mine was, otherwise it’s just a beep. So far, so good.
I think that just happens when you have more than one IC card in your wallet. Here in Nagoya they say you can only use a MANACA card like that if you don’t have any other IC cards in your wallet.
It doesn’t conflict with my cityhop RFID card 🙂
I used my card today and was impressed by the ease of the tag on tag off system – showing fare after tagging off.most people seemed to use cash though.
The website however is another story…
I loaded my hop card with $100.00 minus the 25cents fee on Tuesday 3 May, registered the card on-line but still balance of e-money shows zero today. Obviously lots of teething problems. Thanks Scott for including the reply to your query on this issue – very annoying problem.
I was not impressed with my son’s experience. The school bus this morning (from Meadowbank) would only take the HOP card, even though other buses in the area have not switched yet, so he had to borrow the fare from a friend. He tells me that the bus going home only takes the Go Rider card. I’m not sure what is going on, but having to have 2 cards seems odd, even for a short time, especially as both are designated School buses to/from the same school.
I haven’t had time to check it out with MAXX or whoever.
Went to go from Fanshawe St to Takapuna with gorider card and driver gave me instructions about swapping for new hop card with helpers on platform at Taka and gave me a free ride which was much appreciated. When coming back only 2 of us out of 10 used hop card – rest used cash. Should get rid of cash option I think.
London has started to introduce bus routes where you must pay before you board, even for cash fares, I guess to save both boarding time and cash handling for the driver, so not the worst idea in the world.
Works well on Prepay routes in Sydney too such as the 333 Circular Quay-Bondi which sees enormous numbers of tourists, and saves about 15 minutes across the route over the similar 380 service which is not Prepay.
On top of the Prepay routes, all bus stops in the CBD are also Prepay only from 7am to 7pm.
I dont think they should get rid of the cash option – many tourists couldnt justify buying a card for just a week, and some Aucklanders dont wouldnt use it enough to justify buying one.
I think the cash fares should go be significantly more than the hop fair- this would make using hop a no brainer for 95% of people, so only those that really must would pay cash
yeah the machines can accept them, but your not allowed to use snapper cards according to a newspaper article I read a few weeks ago, but the reporter was unsure if that would be enforced or not.
The short answer is that they cant enforce this- I use my hop card without removing it from my wallet… so they don’t know what it is!
@ my comment above- -this was meant to be a reply to Robbie, for some reason it didn’t to his comment attach though!
Londons is a great system for visitors. Even if you’re only staying for a day or so its worth getting an Oyster Card. When you leave can swap it out and get a full refund on any money left.
I carry both a Ritchie’s card and the new HOP card. I asked the lady at the HOP kiosk whether I could have both in my wallet at the same time. She emphatically said ‘yes’, but that was not the case. When I hopped on the 76 bus at Fanshawe St last night and presented my wallet to the reader it said “More than one card detected” (or words to that effect). It only accepted my HOP card after I removed it from my wallet. On disembarking through the back door, it took 4 attempts for the reader to successfully tag me off. This held the bus up for at least 30 seconds. I think bus users need more education on these issues.
Anthony
If you can, place your Ritchies card on one side of your wallet and your Hop card on the other so they have the maximum distance between them
Cheers
Miki
Rall bad miss-comunication today this morning i asked the bus driver about taging on 2 people and he said “just tag it twice when you get on. and once when u get off” so i did that.later that afternoon i went to do this again and the bus driver told me i could not tag 2 people on 1 card.
I had a very bad experience with hop cards and now I’m hating the whole system.
I hate how I can’t top up by stages and I hate how I have to tag off or else I get a penalty.
I always have to hold the bloody card in my hand so I don’t forget I tag off when I leave since I often daydream or dose off after a long day work.
As I said, since I daydream or dose off I sometime miss one stop and now if I do, even though it’s my disadvantage, I have to pay for another stage.
I’ve already paid for about 3 stages extra because of that.
I hate having to work till I’m tired and come home with an annoyed feeling because I’ve paid for an extra stage or paid a penalty.
I’m sick of the hop card and I’m changing back to cash.
“I hate how I can’t top up by stages” You can top up “10 trips” of stages as with go rider, but it is far less flexible and offers no discount over e-money (and only can be done at some locations). If you really want to top up stages with 10 trips you can, but I recommend e-money.
Give it a couple of mouths and tagging off will become second nature, It will be like turning the tap off after you wash your hands or like locking your residence when you go out.
Under the old system if you override your ticket, even by accident, you are stealing from the bus operator. With hop if you change your mind where you want to go you can ride as far as you like, and without worry of being kicked off/prosecuted/trespassed etc.
I personally think the smart card wins hands down. of course you are welcome to use cash, but boarding is much faster with the smart card, speeding up the bus route making it better for everyone. (Plus there is a discount over cash)
If the above is not meant in sarcasm then you may just have to look at whether you are in fact too stupid to use what is a very simple card system, and whether you need to isolate yourself from modern society, because it all just sounds a little bit too difficult
It appears that the hop card was developed to do the following
1 Make it impossible to travel by bus with a card that had money logged onto it so you were forced to pay more money or told to get of the bus. A way of increasing further sales no doubt .
2 Double charge people travelling and the company again enjoying more sales. ( to the unsuspecting public of course)
3 To infuriate annd make the purchase and use of this card so confusing that you are left at the bus stop unless of course you pay more money too continue on the bus.
4 To humiliate and also intimidate school students who do not have the ability to state their case so are off loaded.
There is no one authority you can speak to as everyone says the same thing almost like an ayutomated voice system we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Who is in charge of this system is it the council or a private owner. ? Whoever it is should be held accountable to the disruption of people not able to travel on the bus even though they have paid on their card and still were not permitted to travel as THE SYSTEM had not turned over. This whole hop card bus fare has by the looks of it a deliberate way for the company to take peoples money by double charging and not even making the funds accessible on the card even though it has been paid.
Where do we complain ? Do we contact a member of parliament as I am sick of being told we will email you in two to three days time.
Denise, your comment comes across as an angry rant and does not clearly state what issues you had with the card system.
My Hop card, (apart from the time the bus reader was broken and the time it conflicted with a tap and go card in my wallet) has preformed very well.
What aspect of the card is to confusing? get card -> top up at a dairy -> tag onto bus -> tag off of bus… seems Ok to me.
There should never be any double charging, I have never, to my knowledge been double charged.
The current system is provided under contract from Auckland Transport by a company called Snapper.
For help contact Hop (http://www.myhop.co.nz/HOP-Help/Pages/HOP-Contact-Details.aspx) , or MAXX or Snapper.
The problems we have incurred with phone calls emails and now blogging on this website have amounted in terms of time 8 hours and still we have had no luck in using the card although 300 dollars has been loaded on card.
It came to my attention that and please note it was actually something which was known by the hop card personnel who we contacted that yes for two sections we were being charged 4 times . If you have spoken to someone 6 times and they finally concurred that the reasons the cards were costing twice as much was because we were being double charged and if you consider that is ok maybe you can pay double but from a consumers point of view that is false advertising dont you think ?
Each time we ring and go on the bus with all the details of money logged it still cannot be used even though $300.00 is in credit so the bus driver says you either pay cash or get off so after a days work and money that has been paid onto this card I dont know about you but I am indeed angry and more to the point why was this system developed to infuriate customers and the bus drivers dont care even though all details are given from trabsactions shown so after 3 months of phone calls and emails there has still been no solution to date so I really need a name of someone I can actually make an appointment to see not just a website as we have already tried this to no avail .
If you check on this website other people like myself have also been charged twice so maybe this is something which is ok by you but not by the people who ride two sections and are charged 4 on thhe way to work as well as on the way back from work . Read your blog site I am not the only person this has happened to and more to the point it is unacceptable
Denise, this blog is not connected to Auckland Transport in any way. I suggest you contact Snapper directly, their CEO has commented above.
Thank you has this ceo got a name and an email and phone number or does he prefer to remain annonymous behind his staff that tell us everything will be ok? regards Denise
His name is Miki Szikszai and contact details are probably available from http://www.snapper.co.nz The current HOP system is predominantly run by Snapper so he would be a good contact.
Hi, we went to Britomart to top up our hop cards at 1pmish Sunday Feb 17, 2013 and we asked the staff to top it for $4 each cards because we’re just going to Newmarket. Then what happened was staff refused to top up our hop cards in a rude way because the minimum top up is $10.00 and they started it ages ago. I replied to them that yesterday we went to Britomart to top up our cards by $8.50 each so they topped it up. We are explaining to them and even showed our dockets that we purchased less than $10.00 multiple times and then they’re saying that they not allowed to top up for less than $10.00. There was not any announcement that $10 is minimum amount for top up how confusing this is? Not even saying an apology because of confusion. I think staffs should be RE-TRAIN again about this situation and let people who are using Hop card know the info about it by not being RUDE!! Is that how costumer service happens at Britomart station??? And one thing Train them not to CURSED people.