On Tuesday night, Campbell Live took a look at the AT HOP card as it stands so far. Click to go through and watch the video.
To me the issues of fare evasion are the most serious and many of the comments made reflect my own observations. Checks can be quite infrequent and even when they do happen, if someone is found without a ticket the staff tend to let the offender off far too easily. Often they give just a warning especially as many of the offenders have learnt what to say to get off, usually blaming the the ticket machine for not working, even when it was working fine. Like is suggested in the story, school kids seem to be some of the biggest offenders, for many of them it is a game to see if they can get away with it.
On the issue with the machines, these seem to be a constant complaint from people. Personally I have found them fairly easy to use but then perhaps I’m just more used to technology than others. AT have said that more are on order but as yet we don’t know when any additional will be rolled out. I do hope that it also includes more tag off posts as in the evenings especially, there are often queues down platforms as people wait to tag off at a single post.
In last month’s board report, AT mentioned that four more stations are being considered to be gated. We know that one of those is Manukau and is happening as part of the MIT campus, after that the next most likely to occur is New Lynn as that has been mentioned before. I have heard that the other two are being looked at, at the moment are Henderson and Grafton (that would deal with a large part of the school kid issue).
One area where I think the story wasn’t exactly far was the discussion around being able to use someone else’s bank or credit card details. To be frank this is no different to pretty much any other online service and I don’t think AT can be held accountable for fraud. Plus in this case, to top up using those methods you have to have a registered card which means providing a whole pile of personal details. That means that if it were to occur, there is quite a strong chance that AT will have a whole pile of information that can be used to track down exactly who has committed this fraud.
It should also be noted that the $110m quoted for the system is for the whole thing, the system is still being rolled out so not all of that is just for the rail system.
While on this topic, there are a few mentions in the report for tomorrows board meeting.
The initial delivery of 200 bus devices have arrived and testing is underway by Auckland Transport and Thales staff.
The tender for the installation of the Thales equipment onto the buses has been awarded and the project team is working on the detailed planning with the bus operators.
Bus passengers using a bus operator specific travel card (e.g. Ritchies, Howick & Eastern) will receive a free AT HOP card on application in addition to the HOP Snapper card users.
Planning has commenced on migrating existing concession card users such as SuperGold, Child, Tertiary and Accessible Concession, across to the AT HOP card.
The implementation of the bus solution requires AT to set up a retail network across Auckland to offer card top up facilities and monthly pass sales. Planning is advanced on agent locations and potential agents. The retail network rollout is aligned to the scheduled bus rollout localities.
And on the recent $5 campaign to get more people using HOP
An on-station campaign was conducted during March to further promote the sale and use of AT HOP cards by rail passengers. During this promotion a total of 8,710 cards were sold, 1,360 by mobile salespeople on stations (one week only) and 7,347 through Veolia sales on-board and via ticket offices.
Perhaps the most concerning is the talk about aligning the fares from each of the HOP products. Cash fares already the same so that leaves any changes likely to be to the level of HOP discount. Based on previous history that is likely to result in an increase in AT HOP fare.
Final alignment of rail and bus fares is planned for 2 June to facilitate ticket product transition from multiple legacy operator products to the streamlined multi-operator initial suite of AT HOP ticket products:
- single trip paper-ticket cash fares
- AT HOP Stored Value (discounted) aligned bus and rail fares and individual ferry fares
- AT HOP $0.50c transfer discount between bus and rail trips
- AT HOP integrated bus and rail monthly passes
- AT HOP ferry monthly passes
And here is the difference in fares between the two HOP cards at the moment.
While I suspect it is unlikely, I am going to hold out hope that the alignment is done by increasing the HOP discount on both. That would not only be seen as lowering the fares, so a positive thing, but also would help in encouraging more usage of HOP in general.
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Ticket inspectors were on the platform at Fruitvale station this morning. They had put up makeshift ticket gates and were prompting all those who did not tag on with hop card to use the ticket machine where another inspector was there to watch them buy a ticket. Apart from being amazingly clunky, intrusive and staff intensive (I counted six staff) this seems an effective system to prevent evasion at the point of entry. Although at this level of intensity why not just gate/staff all the open stations. I think gates at new lynn and grafton would make a massive difference. Tag off points at grafton in particular are totally over-whelmed by numbers in the morning and create yet another incentive for fare evasion.
Well then why don’t they have the guard at where they are boarding to check everyone tags on. Assuming with gates they are only boarding into one carriage.
They need to move very quickly to RFID cards that are read automatically as you pass through a turnstile at the departing station and therefore tag themselves off. Either that or an alarm system with security cameras that goes off if you haven’t tagged off your card.
The whole fare evasion issue was so darn obvious I’m still amazed that it comes as a surprise.
You may also find it easier than the average bear because you were part of the closed trial?
I have seen this ticketing system over and over in action and Its so lapse its a disgrace. Campbell Live will have only encouraged evaders by showing how poorly designed and run the HOP ticketing system is. What I would like to know is who the hell gave the approval for this half arse system because quite clearly its not their money is it? The other issue AT are going have to face is forcing people to buy HOP cards so they can use the trains by having a crap paper ticketing system will only move them to alternative forms of transport. Is this what they wanted to achieve?.
It is no different in London with the Overland. At one point I only had a zone 2-4 oyster card and if I ever went into zone one by Overland, I didn’t have to pay.
They didn’t have the same tag off or incur a penalty either so I could get onto a train at a gated station and get off at an ungated station. I had to lurk on the platform once though as they had guards making people tag off.
Once they have the electric trains and no longer need the onboard conductors, they should reemply these people as inspectors. This works well in systems I have used in Europe.
In Prague there are zero gates but a lot of plain clothes inspectors who will nail you if you dont have a ticket. Czechs pretty much all buy yearly passes that are often paid for or subsidised by their work or they pay them off over the year from their wages.
Once the system is fully integrated, we should move toward longer term tickets like that. It is incredibly easy and efficient.
The lack of tag posts is a problem. Is there any reason there cant be posts on the trains? The old purple HOP cars work on buses so why not the new system on trains?
No matter how bad this system may appear, just thank your lucky stars that we havent had the MyKi system fiasco in Victoria.
If there are already queues of people trying to tag off at a train station, how much worse would it be if they were trying to tag off as they exited the train? The new carriages are something like 150 people, which is triple most buses, and the doors are designed for two people at a time. There could be serious injuries if people got pushed out the door as they were trying to tag off.
Yeah you are possibly right there. I guess I was thinking that people could tag off before the train stopped – assuming it was smart enough to figure out what the next station was and charging appropriately – thereby spreading the demand for the tag post so there wasnt a huge rush as people got off. I also wasnt suggesting it was a replacement for the station tag posts (you would still need them to tag on) – just a supplement.
This must be an issue on the buses now though isnt it? The new double deckers have 88(?) people on board with only one (?) door – how does it handle the disembarking of all those people needing to tag off with the old purple HOP cards?
I assume the double deckers have 2 double doors so could take 4 readers to speed up disembarking. WOuld definately have two readers on the front door as the current single decker buses have that.
Right – so if each carriage had two posts at each door? That wouldnt be too bad would it?
How many doors and how many carriages x 2 – Steve D below suggests that would be 684 tag machines.
I would have thought you would put a reader on each side of each entrance and exit from the station(actually at a point between the platform and the ticketing machine preferably so you hvae to have a ticket, to HOP before you enter the platform area).
Two posts per door would be very expensive. There are four doors per carriage and there will be 171 carriages. That means we would need over 1300 card readers compared to say 400 if you did 10 per station . For most even that would be massive overkill e.g. my station has 5 already but probably only needs another two.
I’d guess there are also far more total doors on all the trains in Auckland than there are entrances to all the stations. Once the EMUs arrive having the posts on board would need 2 doors x 2 sides x 3 cars x 57 units = 684 tag posts on the trains. Even adding half that many across the platforms around the network would be more than enough.
A lot of stations just need a couple more posts, so there’s one on each side of the major entrances. Some stations only have one or two tag posts per platform.
There’s no way you would put tag off posts on trains. Each train would need the equivalent of a bus driver console for upload / download of data and I don’t think that exists. Plus posts on the platform are realtime while on train would not be.
Some information for you all. The very powerful Council Accountability and Performance Committee is currently on and will grill AT on the Integrated Transport Program and with a bit of a push (lobby Councillors via social media, they are online at the moment) AT HOP.
Fail that the next Transport Committee in May is having a major Q+A on AT HOP
While, it’s terribly unfair that some people freeload, there’s no point spending more “fixing” the problem than will be recouped in evaded fares. I have no interest in paying more, as an honest user, just to achieve 100% compliance.
Until the law is changed to actually allow fines to be issued, let’s just suck it up a bit. Report school kids to their principles, make dodgers get off and wait for the next train, etc. Gating everything just adds costs, and it isn’t that hard to jump a gate. Once the laws are in place, proper fines can be issued and fare dodging will plummet.
Exactly. The trains are private property. A condition of carriage should be that if you are caught dodging fares your photograph will be taken, and if your place of education or employment can be identified from your attire then your photograph and the details of your dodging will be passed on. After all, dodging fares is theft and theft while identifiably associated with a school or business brings that school or business into disrepute. I honestly don’t have a problem with someone getting into trouble with their employer if they’re stupid enough to dodge fares in uniform, and as for school kids they deserve to be nailed by their schools for lowering the school’s reputation. Most schools have behaviour policies that apply while in uniform, and stealing while in uniform is about as dumb as it gets.
If the fines were accompanied by automatic 28-day bans from riding any public transport it might have an effect also. If you face arrest and prosecution for trespassing just because you didn’t pay your fare, you’re going to clean up your act; provided it’s followed through, of course, which is a much more questionable affair. AT just don’t seem to be taking this seriously, because they already have the power to trespass people who dodge fares and it never happens (to my knowledge).
“Fare dodgers are costing [ratepayers] $5-6 Million per year.”
Its simple maths if somewhere in the vicinity of that amount can be recouped by gating off a couple more stations each year, then lets do it. There is probably little to be gained by rushing out and gating off Te Papapa or Westfield for example.
We have two main destination stations sorted, go and find a couple of big origin ones like Henderson or Middlemore to further improve the bulk of the problem. Ironically the hop data itself might give AT a better idea of where they can target best: compare some manual daily counts with hop numbers and target gating to the stations with the biggest discrepancies.
I think the new trains have automatic counters on them so you can save a step or 2. My uneducated guess is aim for the busy stations which are mentioned already around here – New Lynn, Panmure etc. People on gates are also good visible customer service which the new AT chair seems to be keen on.
Yes they will have automatic counters on them which will allow AT to compare the results with HOP data to see where the major issues are and allow them to target that.
Yes – but maybe report to the principal as the kids might not have many principles if constant fare evaders 😉
School newsletters etc are a useful tool in this regard. Maybe AT could charge a levy to the school if a constant issue for example!
If the machines are hard to use for some, is there the option of getting an operator to top up your card.
On the system in Christchurch you get you card topped up either by the bus driver or the Metro office staff. There are no automated machines involved.
Obviously the machines are necessary because of traffic but do people also have that option to get someone else to load their card for them.
Yup. The cards can be topped up at four train stations at present, and once they’re rolled out across the bus network they’ll be able to be topped up in a heap of small retail outlets as well.
The challenge people are having is cash fares on the platform rather than using HOP, I think, since using HOP is just a matter of tap’n’go.
And let’s be honest, the machines are not hard to use. No harder than machines in other countries. I suspect it’s all the sheltered Aucklanders not used to using ticketing machines though with ATMs etc having been around for a long time why that should be the case I don’t know.
My beef with the Campbell story is balance, or lack of, and a bit of hypocrisy. One, they made a big hoohaa on the story that they didn’t get charged the $20 when they were caught. Then they say it’s not legally enforceable. Could it just be the ticket inspectors offered the reporter a hop card because they were aware of that and for that reason offered a hop card so that they got some revenue from the customer. And on the topic of the online security, if someone has deceitfully got credit card or bank details, they’ll be able to use them on most sites.
Also there was the interview of the young English lady who had had her card frozen. Not a nice experience I’ll grant but where was the balance in asking someone else about their experience, as I’m sure many who have used the card have not had problems (like moi). I felt that while there were some valid points made, the story was pretty one-sided in many aspects. .
Careful now Simon – comments like that would reduce the story to the delay in implementation, the lack of large fine to serve as a deterrent and the lack of tag off posts.
And on the subject of a large fine, and its enforceability, I find it hard to believe that asking the relevant minister why the legislation hasn’t been enacted yet didn’t somehow enter the journalist’s mind. Surely that’s a valid question that was completely ignored.
As for the young lady missing trains because she was queuing up at the ticket machine. I’m sorry but having lived overseas, you know that you have to be at the station early enough to get your tickets as the train won’t wait. I’ve used trains all over the world and none have waited for me if I haven’t got my ticket ready. So, sorry, I find her excuses (despite what definitely is an exceptionally poor customer service by AT) for being late to work just a tad on the “sob story” side of things. Also did anyone notice she was biking right in the middle of the traffic lane instead of cycling in the cycle lane on the footpath! Me thinks this young lady might not have all the sense in the world! .
“As for the young lady missing trains because she was queuing up at the ticket machine. I’m sorry but having lived overseas, you know that you have to be at the station early enough to get your tickets as the train won’t wait.”
She doesn’t live overseas – she lives in NZ.
Queue of 7 trying to get the up machine working at Manurewa this morning.
Auto top up should really be promoted more. The lady appears to be from England – the land of the very very very long line. You always have to allow time there so her story seems a bit bizarre.
Again, why has the law not been implemented? Please ask all the questions Campbell Live.
Auto top up is a ripoff.
It is not immediate when it should be.
In what sense is it not immediate? The moment your balance goes under the threshold you’ve set, extra funds are added to your card and can be used immediately. It doesn’t charge your credit card immediately, but that’s AT’s problem, not yours.
Please explain the “ripoff”. There is a 25 cent charge if you make a one off top up – so is auto top up not actually better value?
http://www.athop.co.nz/top-up/auto-top-up/Pages/default.aspx