I got sent through this photo today – highlighting that while some serious questions remain over the rollout of the HOP card at least there is some progress on getting the ticket gates in, building on progress at Newmarket a couple of weeks back: 
For a number of reasons I really can’t wait until these gates are operational and we have the HOP card live on the rail, bus and ferry network. In particular, it should hopefully see fare evasion reduce – which is absolutely rife at the moment.
It seems there was to be a HOP related announcement this week, but it has been pushed back. Just like everything that has anything to do with the project. So who knows when we might see the gates actually up and running.
Processing...
These actually went in before the end of July as I noticed them before I left. Having them only at Britomart and Newmarket should mean they are at least monitored, I did notice in Paris a lot of people jumping the gates, even when there were full screen barriers.
I often remember this interesting story from a couple of years ago when either the Metro or fare evasion come up: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/04/short-cuts-metro-fare-evasion. Also a bit on a RNZ thiswayup podcast here http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/thiswayup/20100508
I think because of the very rational (though probably not morally right) approach to the situation and the costs, as well as the contrast between something I associate with respectability and a law abiding society (insurance) and the anti-establishment/law breaking actions (fare-evasion).
Not too sure if it’s still happening.
And with the reduction in fare evasion, presumably a more acurate view of passenger numbers, especially numbers by time-slice.
As I’ve said before, gating only Britomart and Newmarket will put no more than a ‘dent’ in the fare evasion problem as most of the evasion occurs between the smaller stations. Until Mt Albert, New Lynn, Henderson, Ellerslie, Glen Innes, Panmure, Sylvia Park, Papatoetoe and Manukau are gated (with just two wheelchair-width gates per station in the main), the network will continue to leak revenue like a sieve.
Have you calculated whether it’s worth installing gates at those stations? I don’t know how much thew gates cost but I suspect those puppies don’t come cheap … not that I don’t support the intent of what you’re suggesting, but I also don’t see too much of a problem with gating the big stations first and working progressively through the network as demand warrants.
But we do have to accept that sometimes it’s simply not worth collecting fares (for economic reasons).
Stu, Matt and others have quoted in the past on this blog, a NZ$500k per station cost for just the gate purchase / install. I dont know how any gates that is exactly but I suspect it would be for 3-4 gates per station – 1 wheelchair-width and 2-3 normal-width gates.
I believe that supply/install of two wheel chair-width gates and the cost of supply/install of a glass and steel box with roller doors to enclose those gates (a box at either end of a platform), could be done for NZ$500k per station. My proposal is to gate only certain stations on the network – stations with island platforms that have a maximum of two access points. I would give priority over 2013-2014, to gating Henderson, New Lynn, Mt Albert or Morningside, Glen Innes and Sylvia Park – NZ$2.5 milion cost. Certainly do not agree with you that it is uneconomic to spend NZ$2.5 million on revenue protection. I’m sure that even with gates in at Britomart and Newmarket, fare evasion will account for at least NZ$5-7 million in lost revenue per annum going forward. NZ$2.5 million CAPEX to generate NZ$5 million for OPEX is good ROI in my book.
Your estimates don’t match with ARTA’s estimate that evaded fares in 2010 were about $1.5m. Moving to HOP will reduce that further by making it much more difficult for the bulk of passengers (who travel via Britomart or Newmarket) to evade.
Ok so $2.5 million capex has an opportunity cost of about $4,000 a week. The question Stu is asking, if I understand him right, is whether gating those stations would increase revenue by more than $4,000 a week.
Now there are two things to consider of course, one is the value of unpaid fares, the other is the value that would be recovered. Lets call $4k the equivalent of a thousand trips a week for arguments sake. It’s wouldn’t be quite right to say the network loses $4k a week if it carries a thousand unpaid trips, rather it doesn’t make $4k a week. The marginal cost of servicing those thousand trips across a week is almost negligible, they’d get lost in the rounding.
So we go and spend $2.5 million on gates to stop a thousand trips a week slipping through unpaid, what is the outcome? Do all those former malingerers suddently start buying a full fare, or do they just stop travelling on the train? I’d say it would be much more of the latter. The actually revenue increase might be only 20% of the former stolen trips value.
Now I’m not saying it is a bad idea to gate more stations, I think it is good, but we do need to consider the potential diminishing returns of gating more and more stations. At some point you might as well just let a few percent ride without paying, the actual cost of doing so is negligible, while the cost of preventing them from travelling could be a lot higher.
Clear thinking, but as we apparently need to ‘prove’ an ever increase ridership in order to get the funding that would attract that ridership there is another cost from these uncollected fares; an undercounting of the the current level of use of the existing limited network.
Of course in a less politicised and more mode neutral context this wouldn’t be so much of an issue….
Right now, the Auckland rail network has as we all know, antiquated rolling stock, a patchy collection of stations and operations staff who provide customer service that leaves much to be desired. Yes, more and more people are using rail to get around AKL but they don’t see the service as being worth paying for in full and so fare evade – I can certainly understand this reasoning. I cannot believe thus, that fare evasion in AKL would still be running at NZ$1.5 million per annum in 2012. From what I have read, AT still don’t have a proper handle on what the actual annual total for unrecouped revenue is, as they do not yet have the mechanisms in place for accurate detection/verification. At absolute bare minimum thus, I think fare evasion right now, could well be NZ$3-4 million and will most certainly increase once the EMUs start service in full from 2015 onwards.
By the beginning of 2014 however, all the stations on the network will be of a consistent standard, the issuing of single journey tickets and topping up of stored value cards via station-located ticket machines will be the norm and at least a quarter of the rolling stock will be EMUs. People will be more inclined to use the network then and fare evade less, as it will be a network “worth using”. I accept the point raised about the risk of gating too many stations too soon, lest it become a barrier (pardon the pun) to increasing patronage. I think thus, that gating those specific stations on the Western, Eastern and Southern Lines that I proposed, be done progressively over a 12-18 month period from the beginning of 2014. In that way, I believe usage of the network will increase because of its efficiency and its modernity and people will be far more inclined to pay full fare and be accepting of those ‘strategically’ gated stations. ROI should have factored into it, the savings from not having to employ staff on station platforms and in trains to check tickets / HOP cards. OPEX savings of potentially NZ$1.5-2 million per annum in staff costs and revenue protection of NZ$2-4 million per annum in fares over 2013-2015, is certainly a worthy return on NZ$2.5 million CAPEX.
In regard to the gating of stations in general, what I really don’t understand in the way the new ticketing system in Auckland is being rolled out, is the rationale for using HOP to literally discriminate against single journey tickets. The AKL rail network should not give priority to HOP over single journey ticketing. The most successful rail systems in the world – Hong Kong and Japan, give equal weighting to the provision of stored value card and (mag-stripe) single journey ticketing. Hong Kong’s ticketing system – ticket machines and gates, is a full Thales solution. HOP should not be viewed as the be-all-and-end-all for rail journey payment in AKL, nor be seen as the panacea for ridership / farebox ills. The successful rail systems of Hong Kong and Japan give their customers a choice in payment method for rail journeys – Auckland must do the same if it is truly serious about increasing passenger numbers. Reducing single journey ticket holders to feeling like they are second class citizens by having to go through a human-operated manual gate at major destinations, will only serve to further perpetuate the culture of fare evasion, as the network will continue to be seen in the minds of the traveling public as not being ‘worth’ paying full fare for or worse still, not worth using at all!
Increasing ridership and revenue from the AKL rail network is as I have stated above, about making the network seen as being ‘worth’ using. Making certain stations real ‘destinations’ is a key factor in generating this ‘worth’. One piece of low hanging fruit which seems to have been overlooked to date, is the station at Sylvia Park. It is I believe, to the mutual advantage of both the mall owner and AT, to make the mall and station feel ‘closer’ to each other through either adding more shops towards the station direction or making the access way between the station and the mall a more pleasant and comfortable walking journey. With this done and an appropriate marketing campaign enacted, many people will choose to visit Sylvia Park by train in place of by car, due to the comparative ease of access and the fact that they now have an actual choice in the means of transport to reach this popular ‘destination’. Enhancing Sylvia Park in this manner (including gating of the station), would in the minds of the Auckland populace, increase the ‘worth’ of the rail network – a worth which they would be happy to pay a full fare journey for.
I see the logic of your argument Rob, but I doubt that rail travel to Sylvia Park will increase much until weekend frequencies are higher than two trains an hour. Most discretionary trips to Sylvia Park are at the weekend. And rail just isn’t a very good option for shoppers if they can’t just rock up to a station and get on a train in a few minutes. That’s the real edge that Tokyo and Hong Kong have over Auckland! I am an enthusiastic user of PT, but living in West Auckland the chance of me choosing to catch a train to Sylvia Park on a Saturday are precisely zero until frequencies improve substantially.
Going to the Mt Albert station presentation I don’t think they are putting in gates but making allowances for them in the future. I’m not entirely sure where the gates will go as the HOP ticketing machine looks to be inside where i’d assume the gates would be? Overall the concourse proposed looks too small for me but hard to judge.
Makes sense to have gates their with the use from MAGS and unitec.
Just as much use for MAGS at Baldwin Ave and I doubt if they plan to gate that. Expect that usage there will increase substantially if/when they gate Mt Albert!
I am glad to see the gates come in, at least as a sign of progress, but I dont agree that such gates are necessary. I lived in Prague, which has probably the best PT network I have ever used(I also lived in Rouen, London, Melbourne, Bucharest and travelled all over Europe), and there were no gates at all in Prague.
As with a lot of Central and Eastern European systems, the tickets on buses, trams and metro were enforced by contracted plain clothes inspectors who keep a cut of every fine they handed out. So some of the current collectors could be turned into inspectors who randomly ask people for tickets or check their HOP card to make sure it has been swiped.
If the $500k price tag is right for the gates at a single station and we pay the inspectors a low retainer of $30,000 p.a. plus their commission on fines, that equates to the salary for an inspector paid for a period of 16 years. In that time the inspector will catch hundreds of fare dodgers. Sounds like a much better ROI than the gates will every give. The inspector system could also be used in conjuntion with the gates to cath people travelling between non-gated stations.
Is an inspector system planned for Auckland?
I think the cunning plan is to cut guard numbers, as they won’t be selling tickets on board the trains.
Interesting concept- how high were the fines- $100 per infringement? And what happened if someone couldn’t pay (e.g. didn’t have enough cash on them)?
There is an issue with how fare evasion is dealt with legally. I would have thought any sort of inspector would need to be appointed by the Council so that they have the power to issue an infringement notice. If someone couldn’t pay it on the spot then you would need some sort of system of reporting them, which could be done by taking name, date of birth and address. But as there’d be no requirement to carry ID then it would be very easy for someone to tell pork pies about their details and then walk off.
The way you deal with someone telling fibs is to issue all inspectors with video-capable phones and then have them record the person giving their details. That gets a good-quality image that can be handed to the Police and used for on-train identification of repeat offenders, and also helps ensure that there’s no mistake made in collecting the details. Plus if a prosecution eventuates it’s irrefutable evidence that the person being charged did give false details.
What we need is a regime of very high fines. So high that the incentive to evade is diminished significantly by the cost of being caught. Right now the fines are so low that they’re no incentive to behave because the chances of being caught are vanishingly tiny. When I was commuting by bus, in two years I think I saw three inspectors.
The fines were around NZD$20-25. This equates to 10 or more 500ml beers, so is a catastrophic financial setback for those caught.
If you couldn’t pay, they would have no trouble escorting you to an ATM, or getting the police involved. Most metro stations had ATM machines, as did the main tram stops.
“there were no gates at all in Prague”
I spent a week in Prague and was randomly inspected 😉 twice on the train in that time. I thought that was very thorough… It needs to happen often enough that people expect to be caught rather than it being an outside possibility. Both times were in the evening at the weekend.
It’s hard not to love Prague. Things might have changed since I was there, but there was an airport bus that dropped you off at an outer train station. By chance my flights worked out so that I bought a bus and train ticket at the airport, used it all week, and it got me back to the airport with a few hours validity to spare. The trains and stations were all cleaner and nicer than the London Underground and I never once felt like a sardine.
Yes, it’s a well-recognised issue with law enforcement that it’s the combination of the penalty and the likelihood of being at risk of that penalty that affect dishonesty (as opposed to violence) offences. If you’re likely to be caught regularly then a moderate penalty will be sufficient. If you’re less-likely to be caught then a penalty that will negate any financial benefit is required. And if you’re unlikely to be caught then the fines need to be astronomical. I’m in favour of high fines and regular inspections, at least for the first year, at which point the inspections have probably done their job with regard to people who are currently used to dodging fares and can thus be reduced a bit in frequency.
seems as if AT or the Council needs to update its regulations at the same time as it’s changing the ticketing system. Does anyone know if this is happening? I haven’t heard about it.
100% fare collection is never possible but it has to be at the level where it is deemed to be “under control” say 95% or so. I’d hope that the revenue from fines matches the revenue from the lost fares.
I don’t think the Council gets much control over the penalties for not presenting a valid ticket. They can employ more inspectors, but AFAIK the penalties are set at central government level. Which is fine, provided they’re also increased to reflect modern reality. A $40 fine was probably quite a lot when it was first introduced, but now that it’s less than two people going to the movies and getting a box of popcorn it’s no longer in the least bit a financial deterrent.
Prague inspectors have their work cut out for them thanks to the large numbers of obvious tourists and the Czech language ticket kiosks.
I was resident in Prague for 7-8 months, and got my ticket inspected regularly. Inspectors would get on the tram and head straight for me.
I overheard a couple of ticket collectors talking saying they’ll be fining the fare evaders once HOP comes in. I had a feeling they began this loud conversation because they suspected one of the nearby passengers of not paying and hoped them to hear it. Not the best source, but it could be yes.
Don’t ticket collectors currently lack the legal authority to fine people? I seem to remember hearing that giving them that power would actually require new legislation.
So be it, the fare gates themselves and the integrated ticket will require new legislation anyway.
Had a look at these catching the trains from attending the Wynard Quarter anniversary on Saturday and I found myself wondering why there are five gates on the left and only one in the middle to, I think, Platform three. Can understand the gates on the left service two platforms and they’re going to have gates in the middle for those with disabilities for example. That’s quite a width of gates there. I thought two in the middle would have been better. It’s funnelling one platform’s passengers through one gate.
Of course post CRL the outer two platforms are going to be the the constantly busy ones, being the two through platforms…..
I think Platform 3’s use as a long distance platform (albeit very few times a week) may have a little to do with it. Though I admit it looks a little barren there.
I admire your vision Patrick. My concern is a big man in Wellington still standing in the way.
Politicians are temporary…. trains are still using that first ever urban underground tunnel built in London 150 years ago. Remember what Ghandi said: ‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.’ See, we’re nearly there; they’re fighting.
Im sure it’s just because they haven’t got around to it yet, but notice at Britomart they have the main entrance with Gates installed yet the other entrance towards Les Mills work hasn’t started of yet. Hopefully not a another AC blunder which would just increase fare invasion. Anyone able to confirm both entrance points to the platforms will be gated?
I’m fairly sure I’ve read they’re going on the concourse level rather than on the narrow platform at that end. AT aren’t perfect, but they’re not complete idiots!
What do mean by concourse level? Ground level, or that mid underground level? The elevator configuration means people can bypass the mid-level, and at ground level the gates would be in an unsecured area so at greater risk of vandalism/damage. There doesn’t really seem to be an obvious place to put them.
On a rail station the concourse is the level between the platforms and the surface. Unlike the main concourse, people can’t bypass the rear concourse in the elevator. You need to take one elevator to the concourse and a second to access the platform. In that regard they got the rear concourse right, the front one should have had a similar arrangement.
You only need to transfer elevator if you are going to platform 3. The other elevators go from ground level to platform level.
That’s how I remember it anyway, I haven’t used that entrance this year, but used it heaps last year when I lived at the bottom of Anzac ave.
Hmm Ok, I was eyeballing it yesterday, but perhaps I was only looking at platform 3 in the middle.
In that case maybe they just need one wide gate next to those two elevators at platform level, and a bank of them on the concourse.
Ah, it must have been the reason why they wouldn’t be installed mid level I read. They’re going at platform level east end too:
http://www.rnzfb.org.nz/members/member-news/latest-news-2/auckland-transport-changes
Passing through that exit this morning there was a stack of gates waiting to be installed – this weekend perhaps during the network shutdown?I imagine that they would have to gate each of the 2 elevators at Platform 1 & 5 – but given that some trains go right up to the end there it could get a little tight?
Hi, interesting to see that Auckland are going down the route of faregates. In my mind, it’s not the capital cost of the gates that the big issue (they can be amortised across the life of the HOP contract), but the cost of the gate staff. A well-designed gateline should have only a single attendant to provide assistance and customer service. Each extra attendant reduces the effectiveness of the additional revenue collected from the gateline.
In Melbourne, Connex and National Express (later only Connex) continued the habits from the last years of public ownership of keeping the faregates open at the major stations. It took two re-iterations of the franchise to ensure they (and their successor Metro) kept the gates closed and staffed at the 7 biggest patronage stations (and later an additional 7 stations) from first to last train, 7 day a week.
The other thing is to ensure that the new stations are able to be easily retrofitted with gates in an efficient manner. It provides a relatively good way of preserving future options for revenue protection.
So well done Auckland – another transition step on the way to becoming a true rail network!
Putting in manual gates at Newmarket and Britomart to process those carrying single journey tickets is very odd in this day and age. The automated Thales gates must be the sole means by which to process single journey (mag-stripe) tickets as well as HOP cards – a far more efficient and effective means of revenue protection. There should as you say Harold, be only one gate attendant – a person whose sole function it is to sort out passengers with HOP cards that aren’t working properly / don’t have enough credit on the card to get through the gate and to sort out passengers with single journey tickets that the gate has detected they haven’t paid the full fare for their journey. Yet again, Auckland is implementing a half-baked, badly thought through solution – a system destined to repeat the mistakes made in Melbourne that you describe – mistakes similar to what I have seen in Perth and Sydney. Why NZ never looks beyond Australia, UK and Europe to the efficient and effective systems of rail systems in North Asia, is beyond me.
Why have a parallel mag stripe reader system on the gates, when you could simply have RF paper tickets using the HOP readers? That would be the logical progression from print-out singles.
Nick, totally agree. An RF ticket would be a far more elegant solution and would 100% utilize the current gate setup at Newmarket / Britomart. Had a brain freeze there in regard to RF tickets…completely forgot about them….thanks for the antifreeze! Magnadata do some good work in this area as I recall – http://www.magnadata.co.uk/index.php/products/rf-ticketing-tagging-and-labelling
Can someone on this blog advise us all as to the type of single journey tickets that the Thales machines in AKL will be dispensing? If its to be plain paper tickets, then AT needs to lobbied to have this changed to RF tickets as soon as possible.
From what I understand it’s a simple thermal printed paper slip like you get on buses nowadays.
If usage follows other places, single tickets will fairly quickly be used for just a small minority of journeys – from memory something like 90% of trips on Transport for London services are on Oyster, as are 80% of those on Wellington’s NZ Buses, through Snapper – so the format of single-journey tickets will become less and less significant.
Yes, thats my understanding too. Should be cheap enough thus to produce these RF tickets for use in the new ticket machines.
Use of single journey tickets on buses is quite a different situation to that of trains. I agree Mike that people will use a stored value card more on buses as its seen a convenient payment method compared to paper ticketing. For trains however, it will not be a bus-like 90% card usage and 10% ticket usage situation, more like 60-40 or 70-30 in favour of cards. That is currently the case in Japan. There, back in 2007, with the launch of the PASMO stored value card for use on all the private rail networks in the greater Tokyo region, the expectation was that single journey ticket usage would soon fall away like they have done on buses (PASMO cards are an integrated ticketing solution for use on rains and buses) but the reality has been otherwise. Rail companies quickly realised that for trains, customers expect a choice in payment method. Auckland will be no different i believe. Try to force people to use only the HOP card for rail journey payments and that will have an adverse effect going forward on rail network patronage. There will be many people who only use rail for their journeys around the city and they should not be forced to use only one payment method. If AT want true revenue protection / generation, implement RF single journey tickets alongside the HOP card system. The traveling public will certainly appreciate being given a choice and will duly reward the network operator with increased patronage year-on-year.
Rail network size and cultural differences between JP and NZ are not points of difference here. Basic human nature is the same – there is something about rail services irrespective of which country you’re in, that makes us all behave in the same way. People like to be given a choice in how they pay for a rail journey and receive in return, the same level of service for their payment decision. A percentage of those 30 or 40% of single journey ticket users may ultimately convert to being HOP card users but equal numbers may not, so having RF tickets and HOP cards is the best solution for Auckland to clearly determine usage patterns over the coming years. The Auckland rail ticketing system must not be based on the behaviour of rail users in the UK and Europe. Likewise, we cannot expect Auckland to go the way Japan has. Until such time as it is known for sure what the payment preferences of rail users are in Auckland, the prudent solution is to give them a choice of two payment methods for an equal, automated level of service – RF and HOP ticketing – to see what the behaviour patterns turn out to be over the next say 5 years…and make an informed decision thereafter as to whether single journey ticketing continues and in what form.
As the years roll on, there will be more and more people from out of town and from overseas, using the rail network on their visit to Auckland. Those people should not be made to buy a HOP card – a card they will only ever use a compartively few number of times. Singapore and Hong Kong – similar tourist destination cities to Auckland, know this fact well and maintain a single journey ticket service as a result.
My understanding is that Oyster usage on TfL rail services is 90% + (though I can’t find the reference). I don’t think anyone is suggesting that there shouldn’t be single tickets, but it makes a lot more sense to encourage HOP use by eg making them very easily available and refundable (and therefore attractive for visitors and casual users) rather than spending a lot of time and effort in special treatment for a minority, declining single-trip facility.
And I think it’s not the case that people in general want a choice of payment method – they want the single method that suits them best. If HOP follows best practice and offers time, money and convenience savings, the vast majority of passengers will use it, as London attests.
Isn’t the key difference between these cases (London and HK/Singapore/Tokyo) integrated fares in London v integrated ticketing in the Asian cities? By which I mean (because I probably have the wrong jargon) that in London the Oyster card is smart enough to charge you only the cost of the cheapest method of obtaining the service you have used – so typically for a visitor the cost of a one-day central zione travelcard – whereas the Tokyo system justs keeps charging you for every trip. This means that while Suica/Pasmo is convenient, it doesn’t save you any money over single trip ticketing. Since obtaining that convenience requires you to put fairly substantial sums on money on the card, I can well understand the many people would prefer a pay as you go single ticket option. I think the best you can get in Tokyo is a reduced fare on your regular commute built into your card. You can’t get travelcard type savings every day. I’m guessing other North Asian cities are similar to the Tokyo case.
Yes, that’s how it works in Singapore. Commuters usually “fill” their cards with $50-$100 per week for their daily travel needs, and do not receive a discount compared to single-trip fares. Would removing the monthly discount have a major impact on public transport usage here? Hard to say, I guess, but I don’t think so, especially if the quality of service (including availability) of PT improves.
Some commuters use a card linked to GIRO (the interbank-transfer system in Singapore), so that their cards are automatically topped-up by a pre-determined amount when the value in them falls below a certain level (e.g. $10).
Discounted monthly passes are available in Singapore only for students, national servicemen (Singaporean males completing their compulsory 2 year long military service) and senior citizens. The latter have discounted travel at certain off-peak periods, and their cards have their photographs printed on them so they can’t be shared. Fares are based on distance travelled, not zones, so they increase incrementally with each station. If AT adopts that method of calculating fares, would it make a difference to their fare collection?
One thing I forgot to mention is that there are discounts when bus-train transfers are made with the card, which makes it cheaper than having to buy single-trip tickets. The farecard system in Singapore began as an integrated fare approach, and is now slowly being used in other non-PT contexts, e.g. McDonald’s, taxis, etc.
Just to reiterate, the net effect of the London model is that on a busy day the marginal cost of your journeys is pretty rapidly zero, which never happens in the Tokyo system.
Folks, help me out here as perhaps I am getting this all wrong. Is the HOP system destined for Auckland to be an integrated fare system or an integrated ticketing system? If an integrated fare system like London’s Oyster card where using the card is cheaper than purchasing single journey tickets, then that’s great and I support the phase out of single journey tickets. If its an integrated ticketing system like PASMO/SUICA where single journey tickets are the same price as what is charged on the card and the advantage of the card is the convenience (payments for goods from convenience stores, fast food outlets etc are made via PASMO/SUICA along with rail fare payments), then I think the case for offering RF tickets on equal level to HOP is justifiable – people be given the choice of using the all singing all dancing HOP card at a bit more cost per journey or just plain vanilla single journey (RF) ticketing for those who prefer cheap and cheerful.
Well we’re all hoping for an Integrated Fare structure. Why would you penalise your regular customer?
It’s integrated ticketing only, at least to start with. There is some talk of a transfer discount of 50c or something initially, but otherwise it’s just a universal stored value card you can use to buy any of the multitude of operators multitude of unintegrated fare products. Sad face.
If it’s not integrated fares, then AT are going to be sorely disappointed by patronage figures, and there will be no discernible improvement arising from the roll out of Hop – why would there be? The same is true of reconfiguring the bus network. If I can now get a bus all the way into town for (say) $5, but soon have to get a local bus to a railway station, and then pay $5 for my train on top of whatever the bus cost me, then even if I still travel by PT I’m not going to be very happy about it. There has been a lot of talk here about seeing the transfers in a network of high frequency routes as the best way to run the system. But if each of those transfers costs money people aren’t going to use the system in that way!
Hmmm….integrated ticketing only eh?…that’s what I thought it was from the very beginning…which is why the new single journey tickets have to be RF tickets otherwise as David O rightly points out, who is going to want to take up the HOP card as in reality there will be no real discernible improvement to the current ticketing arrangement. To be able to whiz through a set of gates at Britomart and Newmarket with a HOP card, isn’t going to turn anyone on. Until fares between the rail network and the various bus operators are real integrated fares that actually save passengers money, HOP in its present unintegrated fare form, is a lemon. AT would be wise thus, to RF those paper tickets ASAP otherwise there are going to be a lot of pissed off people out there baying for blood, post service-launch.
Let me clarify my post above. The plan with Hop was always to roll out the ticketing system as a stored value card first, then at some point down the track migrate to a single integrated fare structure. From what I hear this new connected network plan has accelerated the push for integrated fares out of never never land. So while Hop will be simply a universal payment mechanism to start with, integrated fares may happen sooner than we initially thought.
Nick, that would be good if the introduction of integrated fares is greatly accelerated. Without that happening, I can see HOP experiencing difficulty justifying its existance. As Harminder has pointed out, the E-ZLink stored value card has managed to retain its ‘reason for being’ in Singapore by extending micro payments beyond transport ticketing to purchases at fast food outlets such as McDonalds. The Touch ‘n Go card in Malaysia can be used on PT in KL, on toll roads, a number of food outlet chains and in a cinema chain. In Japan, both SUICA and PASMO in Tokyo and their counterpart cards in other cities, had their roots in contactless rail ticketing but now include payment at a number of food and retail chains nationwide. Interestingly, the Shanghai Public Transportation Card and the T-Money card in Korea have been very succesful as a purely integrated fare payment medium. I think for HOP to be successful, it has to quickly extend its payment capability to food retail chains including supermarkets…and it needs to move quickly to being an integrated fare payment mechanism. Although Snapper is not a good example, there is a lot to be said for an integrated payment service being run as a private company – Octopus in Hong Kong, T-Money in Korea and the SUICA / PASMO card families in Japan, are all significant players now, in their respective markets.