We mentioned this briefly the other day but Auckland Transport has finally announced that the roll out of AT HOP to buses will begin again this Sunday. The disappointing news is that the roll out to all buses now won’t be completed until March next year.

Auckland Transport said today that the roll-out of AT HOP onto bus services will recommence on 13 October with North Star. The roll-out was briefly delayed due to an intermittent technical issue on tag off devices found on Birkenhead Transport buses and issues with Wi-Fi connections in the Birkenhead area.

Auckland Transport’s Chief Operating Officer, Greg Edmonds says the organisation’s technology provider, Thales, has identified the problem and tested the solution. “We are now ready to recommence the roll-out”.

The North Star roll-out is planned to be followed by Metrolink, the LINK services, Go West and Waka Pacific from October through until December. The rollout post-Christmas is targeted at Bayes Coachlines early in the New Year followed by Ritchies, Northern Express, Waiheke buses, AT Airporter and Howick & Eastern buses over February and March. Auckland Transport will confirm timings to customers nearer the time for each bus operator.

“The phased approach Auckland Transport has chosen for the roll-out of AT HOP is international best practice in terms of the technological magnitude and scale of integrated ticketing projects. Phasing at this last stage of implementation of the project is a prudent approach and ensures no changes for customers over the busy Christmas period,” says Mr Edmonds.

Mr Edmonds also says that following discussions with customers and key stakeholders on the North Shore, the Northern Pass (including the Northern Pass tertiary products) and the Bayswater/Devonport Pass will be retained until the last bus operator on the North Shore goes live with AT HOP. On bus North Star sales of the Northern Pass will cease on 13 October. Passes can be purchased at retail outlets and at Northern Busway stations.

“This provides a longer transition period to AT HOP for customers of these products, particularly tertiary students. This means the transition period for tertiary students on the North Shore is now beyond this academic year. We are targeting these passes to be phased out in February 2014”, says Mr Edmonds.

The strategic and customer focus for AT HOP provides for simpler fare payment for public transport through the one card across all public transport services. It is one card for all travel across bus, rail and ferry services. As part of the AT HOP rollout, Auckland Transport is looking to align fare prices and discounts across all users across the region, removing historic price anomalies creating one price for all and achieving equity of fare prices for everyone.

Mr Edmonds says, “Currently the region has more than 100 existing fare types and prices, the majority of which can only be used on one operator. Some ticket types that are exclusive to individual operators or geographic locality will be replaced with AT HOP. AT HOP will offer all users at least ten per cent discount off single trip cash fares. AT HOP also offers consistent further discounts for child, student, tertiary, accessible and Super Gold users. AT HOP lays the technology platform across all operators for regional improvements to the public transport fare and ticketing system in Auckland”.

Terms of use and the registered prospectus for the AT HOP cards are available on ATHOP.co.nz or at the Auckland Transport Customer Service Centre, Britomart. The obligations of Auckland Transport under the AT HOP cards are unsecured.

How many delays and slippages is the tally up to now? It is certainly up there. The original contract with Thales was signed back in December 2009 and at one stage I remember reading that the project was due to be “substantially completed” by the time of the Rugby World Cup which was two years ago.

Somehow I have a feeling that this won’t be the last problem we encounter with HOP but I sure hope I’m wrong.

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122 comments

  1. The ‘Oct to December’ timeframe is extremely vague, given we are already in October. How much real notice can we expect AT?

    We need to know when to stop paying on the old cards.

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  2. I’m surprised (and more than a little disappointed) that Ritchies (including/especially the Northern Express, being the only core RTN service still lacking ATHOP) has slipped a long way down the order of operators to be changed over. They were originally two weeks after North Star, now they follow all NZ Bus services and now also Bayes? What routes do Bayes do anyway?

    My own commute is from Mt Albert to, and sometimes between, any of five different North Shore locations, spanning all three operator territories over there. The All Zones monthly pass would be really economical for me once they’re all on. The big gap of Ritchies services not being on ATHOP for ages sinks that.

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    1. I was wondering the same thing. Surely it would be better and easier to get one RTN route done first which has a static and clearly defined route.
      And yes, who the heck is Bays Transport??

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        1. Ok so what you are telling me is that the ‘bus roll-out schedule’ very clearly promoted on the bottom right quarter of the AT Hop home page is wrong and has been for months, and they have made no effort to update it?

          Further more the “Important notice for Ritchies and Northern Express customers” says they are delayed ‘until further notice’ and makes no mention that in fact North Star is going live in 2 days time?

          So any suckers relying on the main AT Hop website today for information about AT Hop roll-out schedule is likely to keep buying ten-trip discount tickets ‘until further notice’ and will find they can’t use them in 2 days time and will have wasted a load of money. I hope AT are ready to refund the purchases.

          In fact i can see no where on the AT Hop website at all that mentions North Star are going live in 2 days.

          Do we need any further proof that AT are incompetent?

          Lesson is, if you want information about the AT Hop card, the last place to look for reliable information is the official AT Hop website.

        4. But yes I agree they are incompetent, it should be more clearly displayed and on the homepage of the site. Also there graphic sucks, it has green dots next to buses that aren’t even live, where judging from the bottom ones they should remain grey until live. They could of also added ETA dates to that graphic.

        5. Yeah I also got that email, and tons of purple hop users are subbed to that and theres encouragement on buses to do so also, e.g. with that free smartphone competition.

        6. Right you are Peter, i’ll jump off my high horse now. I had been deceived by North Star and Richies still being side by side in that roap map around October, even though Richies is now not till next year.

          Looks like AT have taken note and updated the roadmap today. Bravo. Richies is now way further down in the new ‘yet to be announced’ section.

    1. The electrification delays, although annoying, are not so bad if it’s only the eastern line that’s delayed as they wouldn’t be getting electric trains till much later anyway. Most of the other lines are done. It will be down right incompetent in the April launch of the Onehunga line isn’t on time!

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        2. I hear the murmur once I ignore it, hear it twice I might take notice, hear it three times and I go emailing.
          Response from Kiwi Rail should be back by next Wednesday on which way it is

        3. I doubt even AT would delay the most important area to be electrified that late. That would mean the April 2014 start date of Onehunga services would be delayed by 8months

  5. Auckland Transport’s communications when it comes to Hop are utterly pathetic. They can’t give us a date more than a week in advance?

    Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless.

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    1. I Agree that the AT communications over AT HOP are pathetic.

      Here is a list of things that AT should do.

      1. Add information about the AT HOP Bus roll out to the updates page of the at public transport app and AT mobile website.
      2. When a date is confirmed for the change over to AT HOP add a separate entry for that bus service to the updates page of the at public transport app and AT mobile website.Also send emails to the AT HOP newsletter mailing list and interested users that signed to receive information about buses or information about that particular bus service.
      3. Released an updated AT public transport app which also you to check your balance and topup ATHOP and MYHOP. cards
      4. Add the ability to check check your balance and topup ATHOP and MYHOP cards
      5. Update the journey planner on the website, mobile website and app so show a graphic showing AT HOP is used on this bus service.

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  6. Auckland Transport your going great. How about putting a Train Station directly or somewhere near the Southern Side of the Bombays…I.e Big flyover area.
    We could park our cars and cycles there and catch a train. We come up from Paeroa.

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    1. how about a train station plus P&R at Drury, just to the east of the SH1 interchange? Can’t build it anywhere south of that until you get to Pokeno, which is slightly too far to catch the Hauraki catchment.

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  7. And Snapper was cut due to delays. Hmmm. would be nice to have my card on my phone like in Wellington for over a year – but of coyrse Thales have this ‘in trial’ so people didn’t kick up a stink about the choice

    Guess flights to France were much nicer for the officers involved than trips to Wellington

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    2. No, Snapper caused a good proportion of the delays, first legal then technical. Name one non-Infratil-owned operator (in Auckland or Wellington, or anywhere else) that the Infratil-owned Snapper card can be used on?

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    3. The Thales mobile phone nfc app, was a successful trial months ago, they are just refusing to release it until all buses are on board, which is stupid and going to take even longer now that they have delayed the roll-out again and again.

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    1. Well the posters up at Smales Farm Station still say ‘northstar and richies hop rollout is delayed until further notice’

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        1. I’m sure the ones on the ticket machines about 5pm today said both richies and nothrstar are delayed.

        2. I’ve been there everyday for the last week except today, but it wouldn’t surprise me for it to have changed again.

        4. Ok I’m standing in the station right now and it definately the old information. Say both northstar and richies is. Delayed.

        5. You certain? I thought they said Ritchies and Northern Express. That is a massive stuff up if it is true…. Apologies.

  10. Why couldn’t have AT picked up Melbourne’s Myki? It seemed to work well when I travelled there recently. it also had some nice features that AT could look at, like a max spend per day, and weekend travel really cheap. also, only 2 fare zones over the whole city.

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    1. from what I understand myKi does not perform particularly well in terms of read/write times, i.e. it’s slow. Circa 600ms versus HOP’s (supposed) 300ms.

      Maximum spend per day (or some equivalent thereof, e.g. max trips per day/week) are common in many PT systems, and could readily be implemented in Auckland once HOP is up and running. Zones and fare products are a (somewhat) separate issue from the smartcard ticketing technology. Read the RPTP if you’re interested in what Auckland’s zones might look like.

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      1. A Max spend is planned. Once all operators are using Hop, and they have fare data, they will determine the amount.

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      2. Myki has been a disaster of a system, ask anyone who lives in Melbourne. It bought the state government tremendous grief. A better one (in Australasia) to have borrowed would have been Brisbane’s.

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        2. It is a real imbalance in NZ that employers can offer free (unallocated) parking to employees with no FBT but they cant pay for PT passes without having to pay FBT. The annual all zone pass in Dublin is the equivalent in Euros of NZ$1025. So that would be all your transport costs for a year if you so choose. What a fantastic idea to help low income workers.

          It is quite sad to see how far behind other developed nations NZ is getting on transport. When I visited Dublin in the late 1990s it was a terrible place transport wise. Now it has LRT lines everywhere and has just been named by Copenhanize as one of the 2012 top 20 cycling cities in the world. Meanwhile Auckland (with a similar population, similar sized national population and similar Anglophone culture but a much better economy) languishes at the bottom of all transport metrics.

          What happened to clean, green and innovative NZ? Very sad.

        3. I hear the best one in Australia is Perths smartrider…It was a way less than Melbourne’s Myki

        4. Myki seemed to work fine while I was over there, Brisbane was very nice too, just the hourly Sunday service that caught me out!

    2. Myki is, to put it politely, a dog of a system. That would have been the worst thing to do! Their rollout was supposed to be finished by mid 2007, it was only complete this year, over six years late.

      Any of those features could be supported by AT Hop.

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      1. AT is taking a system from Thales who have deployed similar ones elsewhere, I think it’s simply being localised rather than developed from the ground up.

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      2. no worries. FYI our HOP system is based on similar technology to that used in Amsterdam, where it’s been in place since 2009. In my experience the Thales technology is reads fast and offers quite flexible fare options. So I would not despair – I’m fairly confident that Auckland will end up with a good system. The only question is how long it takes to get there …

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        1. oh so they could bring in per km tickets like amsterdam and do away with zone boundaries?

          Zone boundaries are such a pain, we have a bus stop at the end of our street but it costs twice as much to go into town from there than it does from the next stop 200m up the road, so we never use it.

  11. I predict that in 6 months the HOP roll-out will be over, and in 7 months we’ll be wondering how we ever managed without it.

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    1. My Sunday trip from Swanson to Glendowie and back is $10.50 pre-HOP, $22.60 post-HOP, so 7 months from now my use of PT will be ancient history. Oh but hey, the AT HOP card gives a 10% discount, oh joy!

      AT HOP has resulted in the single biggest fare increases ever experienced in New Zealand public transport history. It’s not good news by any stretch of the imagination.

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      1. It’s been reported there are replacement day passes in the works that would make your trip even cheaper than initially. But let’s be honest, someone who makes one crosstown trip a week on Sundays isn’t who they should design the fare structure for, more like regular commuters and people who use PT every day.

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        1. It would be great if everyone had a HOP card and the discount was meaningful. On London buses it’s something like 50%. 10% is just not meaningful for the odd trip and not worth the hassle.

        2. They call it a 50% discount, but that’s just marketing spin.

          Fact is fares came down 10% for using oyster (and then back up), and went up 100% for paying cash (and stayed up).

        3. Yep, realise that and fine to raise the cash fare in my opinion. The cost of paying cash in terms of dwell times is way ahead of the discount for not paying cash.

        6. I can’t find the link, but pretty sure it was in the Transport Committee minutes, they were looking at shorter term periodicals based on the monthly pass zones.

  12. So there was I thinking that I would FINALLY be able to stop paying cash on buses (I am an occasional user so passes often don’t work for me) and I see the NEX and Ritchie’s won’t be on AT Hop until March! Good grief. I suspect there won’t be many people feeling positive about AT Hop by then. I already know people (non- ATB readers) who have decided this new system is rubbish. It is hard to disagree with them at the moment. Does anyone know if the problem is Thales, the myriad private bus operators we have in Auckland or Auckland Transport incompetence.

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    2. The implementation has not gone smoothly, but the system (assuming it eventually is fully implemented) is certainly not rubbish. In fact quite the opposite: It’s quite sophisticated ticketing technology. That means it has fast read times, e.g. twice as fast as the Snapper card.

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      1. I hope you are right about the quality of the system Stu but I wonder if technicalities like that will matter to people like my other half who now has to spend five months with a card that only works on some of the buses he uses (plus of course the extra expense of having to pay cash). He was not impressed just now when I told him what was happening.

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        1. I don’t see why carrying two bus cards around for 6-12 months is such a burden. Sure, I wish it could happen quicker, but I don’t feel like the current situation is too bad.

        2. It is when your Snapper card stops working and you have to try and replace it, only to find virtually no one stocks it any more (because why would they). Plus of course, you don’t want to have too much money on these things that you can’t get back when they finally change over. Keeping two cards topped up can also be a financial burden, especially if you have multiple cards in a household. But so glad you don’t personally find it inconvenient.

          Sarcasm aside, no it isn’t a big deal in cosmic terms but it is a hassle and combined with the appalling “service” offered by AT buses, it creates an perception of incompetence and lack of regard for customers that might be hard to turn around. I really do want this project to succeed and for PT in Auckland to work well but it is hard to sustain enthusiasm when confronted by a grumpy spouse who frequently faces journey times of well over an hour that he could drive in about 25 minutes.

          Um – and twelve months? That seems an inordinately long time.

        3. We all want it to be over, but having two cards is already better than only a few years ago when you needed probably a dozen for all the different bus operators.

        4. I was disappointed this morning to find out that I still couldn’t tag on with more than one RFID card in my wallet, I’d been hoping that that problem had been resolved. Is there any technical reason why the system can’t ignore non AT HOP cards?

          Incidentally has anyone tried the trick of putting the old and new HOP cards back to back with a piece of foil between them, so that one card is shielded? Didn’t work when I tried it.

  13. Not surprised at all, last year AT said AT HOP will be fully rolled out on buses by April this year, then they made out on there site it was the “beginning of their roll-out”, delay after delay, a couple of months ago I mentioned to some friends that I wouldn’t be surprised if it went on until next year, its very typical of AT to delay things for months or even years for some ridiculas excuse or another. They’re probably now going to delay the AT Hop NFC app for tagging on/off with your smartphone until next year now also which was previously scheduled “by the end of the year when all the buses are rolled out”, the CEO demoed it like last year… thats must be embarrasing for him that something that already works takes 2 years for AT to release… lol, sorry but Snapper is looking much better right now in that regard, and they wouldnt of even needed to roll-out to NZBus thanks to them already being all set-up. Also @Molly there some incompetence, bus drivers forget to change the route on their machine on Urbex buses and you end up getting charged several times the amount etc since they dont follow the final stop and switch route procedure of setting route to N.I.S. and parking at beggining of FINAL STOP point open doors, let people off, close doors and set new route on noticeboard/system then move up and open doors to pick up passengers for new route.

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  14. Seriously, can AT get just one, JUST ONE project completed on schedule and done properly? Every single PT project, regardless of what it is, fulls behind schedule but every motorway project finished months ahead. I guess we can blame the government for that one too.

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    1. Auckland Transport’s EMU Project is being delivered on time and within the allocated budget. The Overhead Line Electrification Project is being managed and delivered by Kiwirail, not AT.

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      1. Too early to say if the EMU Project is on time, just because the first one got here on time. I’ll reserve judgement for when the last few have arrived, and they’re all fully tested.
        As for the Manukau and Onehunga openings, they were both delayed too, and were projects of ARTA/AT

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        1. Well, you reserve your judgement. I’m sure I’ve read recently that CAF are opening an extra one of their production lines so that more units per shipment will happen and that the timeframe for all units having arrived in NZ will be earlier than originally planned.

        2. Yes I read that too, I think we’ll see the full roll out earlier than was originally planned which is great.

        3. Oh i have no doubt the trains will be delivered to AT on time by CAF. Wether AT can rollout a service using said electric trains on time is another matter altogether. Going on the record recently i would be very pleasantly surprised if it did keep to schedule.

    2. Auckland Transport has nothing to do with the motorway projects, extrapolating one complicated roll-out to the entire organisation is a huge and unfair generalisation.

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      1. Not really, thales can get bus equipment punched out by the manufacturers they deal with in a matter of days and have it in NZ in days, a crew of several people could install on 1000 buses in 2-3 weeks, but of cause theres other factors and one of those is obviously holding it up, AT’s planning and management team needs a kick in the pants whereas NZTA seems to have the right people for the job. Also why the heck is AT using WiFi for their RTB and Positioning systems, cellular is a much better way to go and judging by how much they paid for their equipment (an over the top amount last I checked) kicking a deal with a cellular telco and getting a cellular based data system going and part of ongoing costs wouldn’t be that big an impact, asuming they’re actualy saying Wi-Fi is the problem with there equiptment at this time or are they actually talking about something else, they are always so scarse on passing on information to the public…

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        1. It takes a bit longer than that to install machines.

          Wifi is for end of day data download. I’m not sure why the didn’t piggy back of the (I assume) cellular that transmits the gps location.

        2. Well gps cords getting sent to a server over cellular will use only a few bytes a second I doubt it would even work up to 1mb a day, they would just have to deal with the telcos to get hundreds of sims loaded into a database they can easily manage to pay all at for instead of paying per sim, assuming they go that route, the $1/10mb a day pricing for customers (just using as an example on VF) would be fine for them, but i’m sure they could work an even better deal with the telcos if they wanted to.. lol.

        3. Also I doubt it would take longer then that to install the machines, its just a simple mount and plug job taking one or two engineers 5-10 minutes to install per bus.

        4. Depends if they are wired up for the machines. Not all buses had rear card readers – you just dont string up a cable, that requires the bus to be hoisted so at least a hour or two each bus.. Thats why all the wiring and card readers and bases for the actual unit are done before hand over a long period of time. Then they do a big bang to take off the old machine and put in the new one.

        5. The power could just feed of the power wiring to the rear door, they only use low current DC, but yeah a data cable would have to run down to the rear unit, but wouldn’t they use a wireless technology for that, an 802.11 module on both the main unit and the rear scanner would cost around $35 all up for a consumer, would interfere between buses since they would each have their own ID, less probably for a company like thales to mass produce? Cheap enough to implement considering the already high price of their nfc scanners.

        8. Well yeah I was thinking that, but 802.11 is an extremely reliable standard, especially for something that short range. It just seems they haven’t really thought it out, how is a engineer dicking around install a network cable (probably cat5e/6 as thats the norm for that kind of equipment) for an hour a better idea than using 802.11, 802.11 module failure rates are much lesser than 802.3 NIC’s (worlds most reliable wired copper data standard), at least to the current standards.

      2. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of Infratil/Snapper, but they got all that all rolled our on the NZ bus fleet without delays and complications. I was still in Auckland at the time, and remember it quite clearly.

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        1. Yes and they have an awesome mobile app which you can scan your card with nfc and see your balance instantly, you can even use your phone as a snapper card and easily top up with a Visa/Mastercard CC/DC, plus use the card to purchase in hundreds of dairies and shops. Wheres this functionality with the new system… nowhere, at the moment its as boring as go rider etc was with AT hop, and they still expect me to pay $0.25 a top-up, for what exactly? A card I can use on trains, ferries and 2-3 bus companies, how stone age.

        2. Oh but apparently this mobile functionality is already done by AT hop, they had a *successful trial* months ago, they are just refusing to release it because all the buses aren’t on it yet. What kind of excuse is that? Its just sad they would hold of on releasing something for no reason, or an unexplained to the public reason, which seems to be AT’s code, keep everything under wraps even the reasons for delays of roll-outs, releases and just about everything else.

  15. The 380 Airporter should be done at the same time as the Waka Pacific buses, considering it has the AT logo all over it but you cant currently use either Hop card on it.

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    1. Yeah I always found it funny have the Northern Express busses have a big AT logo and don’t take AT hop yet, kinda false advertising but they will probably use “oh its our companies logo and the bus doesn’t say AT Hop” as an excuse.

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      1. Given that the service started AFTER the first buses started AT HOP it amazes me that it didn’t start with HOP.

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        2. Sorry, but I consider the airporter extension to be the launching of a service, not a rehash, and AT treated it that way too.

  16. I find it interesting that they’re pausing things during “the busy Christmas period” and finishing in March, although March is the month with the highest patronage (thanks to tertiary students going back to study).

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    1. Clearly a sign that Greg Edmonds doesn’t have a clue about PT. Xmas is the ideal time to do changes because PT is quiet.

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    2. let me decode that PR spin for you.

      “Phasing at this last stage of implementation of the project is a prudent approach and ensures that our staff don’t have to focus on the roll-out over the Christmas period when they are busy planning summer holidays and relaxing at their batches.” says Mr Edmonds.

      It’s not like they have to worry about a competitors product beating them to market.

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  17. Just been to Los Angeles. There, you buy a stored value “TAP” card for $1 from any metro station vending machine, and you add value to it. Flat fares apply within much of the city area and are just $1.50 per ride, metro or bus. Day passes are $5.00 (plus the $1 if you do not already have a TAP card). You TAP your card on the reader at the start of your journey AND YOU DO NOT NEED TO TAG-OFF!

    Also went to Atlanta. Their system is similar

    Auckland’s HOP and Wellington’s Snapper are expensive and complicated by comparison. They are not designed to promote ease-of-use, or to give customers a good deal. Their purpose is seemingly to extract every last cent possible from captive customers, or from anyone who persists in trying to use the system in spite of a fares-regime that is scrooge-like in comparison to LA’s or Atlanta’s.

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      1. Auckland’s fare system is terrible as your pay again for every transfer you make, unless you shell out for an expensive monthly pass that often only works out cheaper if you use PT 7 days a week and only within the fixed zones you purchased. A good fare system doesn’t punish connections.

        At least in LA $1.5 + $1.5 = $3. Whereas most commutes in Auckland with a connection are more like $6+

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        1. They are working on where when you transfer within a certain time it does not charge you another fee rather recognizes it as a transfer and charged when you finish your entire journey

          This goes with their plan to increase frequencies so that people are not being ripped off with the transfers because the bus wasn’t on time

        2. LA is worse than Auckland because in Auckland each connection cost you at most one stage which may only be 20-50% of the cost of your journey, where in LA each transfer costs you 100% more than the same journey with no transfers.

    2. You dont have to go to LA, just go to Christchurch. They have had a single tap, time based system on buses for at least a decade.

      Although I agree that free PT (a la Minto) is not realistic, a flat fee or daily cap has to be brought in. Although this may mean travel is cheaper per km for people further out, I think that is balanced by the far better access to PT/cycling that users have in the central city.

      Central city users have a much better opportunity to lessen or eliminate car travel and therefore save money by owning only one or even no car. For travellers further out, PT may only be an option for commuting or some limited trips so car ownershp is more necessary.

      I would have thought a 2 hour (as in Chch) travel window for $3 would be a good start. In Chch if you tag on twice in a day, the rest of the day is free and if you tag on 10 times, the rest of the week is free. A fantastic and easy to understand system that (with the excellent inner city bus exchange – another lesson for Auckland) was really going places until the earthquake knocked it over.

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  18. It would be nice if AT announced a new fare structure now even if it doesn’t take affect until after all buses are rolled out. People might not be so annoyed about paying more for HOP if they knew it was temporary.
    Personally I would like to see a daily cap at the price of a return journey, discounted off peak rates (maybe even half price), and much bigger discounts for using HOP compared to cash.

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    1. Nice? I would say ESSENTIAL.

      Right now in Devonport we’re still stuck with 30 minute gaps between ferries and a monthly HOP pass that costs nearly $200 due to wrongly drawn fare zones. Honestly, this could and should be fixed within a day.

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  19. I’m using a Howick & Eastern pass to bus to a train station, then an ATHop card for the train to work. Not practical, but as another commenter said here previously, it’s not the end of the world. Disappointed to hear about the delay though. I was all ready to experience that “Yeah! We’re making progress!” feeling.

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  20. Ask Phoebe in New Zealand Herald 17/10/2013 Has outlined process for transferring purple hop balance to AT HOP card (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11141204)

    I used to live in Remuera and used a Snapper card for the buses. Earlier this year, I moved to Northcote and got a HOP card for the Birkenhead buses, which do not accept Snapper cards. I called the number on the Snapper card to ask about transferring the existing balance ($90) from the Snapper to the HOP card, or getting a refund. I received an email reply that neither a transfer nor a refund was possible, but the email provided a link to a list of merchants were I could use up my remaining $90. One I tried no longer accepted Snapper cards and another would only add to my existing balance, not allow me to use it for purchases. I hate to throw away $90.

    Tracey Bowen, Northcote.

    Glen Mitchell from NZ Bus says that the process from the AT HOP website (athop.co.nz/get-a-card/Pages/Retailers-offering-both-existing-purple-HOP-and-AT-HOP.aspx) is correct.

    A customer in this situation should identify the most convenient retailer from the AT HOP website listing of retailers that are providing the balance transfer service. Simply present both Snapper and AT HOP cards to the retailer and they will manually purchase the balance off the Snapper card and then top-up the AT HOP card with the same amount.

    The minimum top-up on the AT HOP card is $10 so customers with less than $10 balance on their Snapper card need to make up the difference through a cash or Eftpos transaction.

    There is no refund on 10-trip tickets.

    Locations where you can transfer purple HOP balance to AT HOP (http://athop.co.nz/get-a-card/Pages/Retailers-offering-both-existing-purple-HOP-and-AT-HOP.aspx)

    Retailers offering both existing purple HOP and AT HOPWhen the AT HOP card is launched on your bus service you will no longer be able to use your purple HOP card on that service. View the planned bus roll-out schedule.

    Refunds will not be given for any unused purple HOP card balances or purple HOP 10 Trips. However, at selected retailers you can use any remaining e-money balance on your purple HOP card to top up your new AT HOP card with HOP Money.

    Ticket Office ​Britomart Transport Centre, 8-10 Queen St, CBD
    ​Ticket Office ​New Lynn Transport Centre, 2 Clark St, New Lynn
    ​Ticket Office ​Newmarket Train Station, Remuera Rd opposite Nuffield St, Newmarket
    ​Ticket Office ​Papakura Train Station, Platform 3, Railway Street West, Papakura
    Centreway Dairy​ 194 Centreway Drive, Orewa​
    ​FIX 222 Queen St 222 Queen Street, Auckland CBD​
    ​One Stop Convenience ​135 Karangahape Rd, Auckland CBD
    ​Victoria St Lotto ​67 Victoria St West, Auckland CBD
    ​Zesty’s Cafe ​Auckland University Campus, Gate 2A, 261 Morrin Rd, St Johns
    ​White Swan Superette ​1A White Swan Rd, Mt Roskill
    ​Pioneer Mini Mart ​575B Blockhouse Bay Rd, Blockhouse Bay
    ​Onehunga Office Supplies 159A The Mall, Onehunga 1061​
    ​Manukau Institute of Technology ​O Block, Gate 9, Otara Road, Otara, Manukau

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