Brian Rudman’s column on Friday about the completion of the roll-out of HOP had some good points, although also a few mistakes.

More than a year late, and about $13 million over the original $87 million budget, Auckland Transport’s pre-pay, Hop travel card has finally achieved 100 per cent coverage of the city’s train, ferry and bus network.

My understanding is the project was actually on budget with the reason for the difference being that the original plan didn’t include Auckland Transport paying for the installation of the system on to buses. It was initially planned to leave the bus operators to source their own HOP compliant readers. The issues that ended up occurring with Snapper (among other things) ended up seeing AT change the scope of the project to include buses too and so the project budget had to be increased accordingly.

The real reason of the piece was to highlight one of the real ongoing challenges and opportunities HOP has for Auckland Transport

 Meanwhile, earlier in the day, we commuters on the usually reliable 005 bus to town also had reason to celebrate. The wondrous new Hop reader on our bus had gone feral and we got a free ride. With a smile and a shrug, the driver just waved us on board, saying not to bother swiping our card, or opening our purses.

A couple of stops further on, the free rides suddenly ended. Presumably the system had clicked back to life.

I bring this up not to knock Hop – glitches happen. But what the brief period of free entry highlighted was the time saved when passenger interaction with the driver while boarding the bus is minimised. This is what a smart card system like Hop is supposed to achieve – a quick procession of customers, swiping their smart cards as they enter the bus, with hardly a pause.

Yet despite the now 100 per cent coverage of the public transport network, we’re a long way from this ideal. This was highlighted by Tuesday’s little technical hiccup. Once the driver started taking fares, the bus stop delays returned.

To me, the celebrations are premature.

What’s the good of a $100 million smart card system if more than a third of your passengers continue to insist on paying cash. On Tuesday, while the worthies celebrated, 98,000 journeys – 36 per cent of all trips – were paid for in cash. Over the previous 30 days, 40 per cent of travellers used cash.

Because of the narrow entranceway on most buses, it takes only one cash fare to stall the boarding process. One of life’s mysteries is why a disproportionately large number of cash fare payers seem to wait until they’re standing alongside the driver before remembering they have to give him some money. They then delve into their bags to find a purse, which they then scrabble around in for loose change.

Then there are the blokes who proffer large notes, then fume irritably when the driver punishes them with a cupful of small change.

Meanwhile, Hop card holders debate whether or not there’s room to squeeze past.

It’s extremely noticeable the impact that cash payers have on boarding times. I’ve seen 20 people board a bus in almost as many seconds only for everyone to be held up by a single person paying cash. On one of the buses I caught last week, one guy held up a bus full of passengers for 3-5 minutes while he checked his wallet and pockets multiple times trying to find the exact change before finally handing over a note to pay. He then did the same thing the next day.

HOP has the potential to save huge amounts time if more people were using it. That means faster buses which not only makes them a more convenient and attractive option but has some potentially important operational benefits. If buses can be sped up enough it can mean either the same number of buses can perform more runs each day for no extra cost or less buses are needed to provide the same level of service. Getting any of those benefits is a good outcome for everyone.

So why are people, like the guy described earlier not getting a HOP card and what’s more what are. Auckland transport doing about it?

AT has started a campaign to sign up more cardholders, but the miserable 10 per cent saving over the cash fare that is the main drawcard has hardly been a great success.

Nor has the minuscule and unpromoted 50c (no, not per cent) discount offered to those transferring from one bus or train to another using a Hop card.

Perhaps the answer lies in London, where the similar Oyster card is used for more than 85 per cent of all bus and rail travel.

There, the penalty for paying cash – or if you prefer, the discount for using the smart Oyster card – is so substantial it becomes a no-brainer.

I think fares and the levels of discounts are just one thing that AT need to be thinking about. I’ve talked before about the need to make HOP useful for more people by getting it used for other services like parking – which is something I know AT are looking at. But what I want to know is what other ideas readers have for getting HOP into the hands of more people (other than those discussed in the article).

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57 comments

  1. One fairly effective stick used in some jurisdictions is to simply not give change for cash fares. Not only does it speed up cash transactions, but it gives a fairly strong incentive to switch to using a card.

    One the “carrot” front, I think a wider number of retailers capable of topping up Hop cards would help. Anecdotally, far fewer dairies and convenience stores seem to have Hop terminals than had Snapper equipment (and you could actually pay for items there using your Snapper card).

    1. I recall traveling on Dublin Bus.

      Due to robberies they moved to no change fairs. Persons simply put their change into a holder for the driver to see. He would hit a button and it would fall into a bucket which he could not get at. They would then get a receipt for change which they could take to a central office for reimbursement. .

      Most people never bothered to get their change back. Problem for NZ is that we would have the lawyers moaning that we needed to give change.

      I found the whole process quite fast, drop your money, get your recpit and move on. Often the driver would let a person look for change while they drove to the next bus stop. (The buses were double Decker and had a nice open shelf next to the fount door which would allow you to put your stuff there while you traveled.

  2. How about selling Hop cards at entry points such as Auckland airport? I had to cash-travel my way to Britomart in order to get tne new HOP card last time I was in Auckland.

  3. It would be interesting to know the portion of supergold’s having to “pay” using single tickets, rather than a hop card enabled with their concession,

    Surely it would be possible for AT to do a deal with MSD for them to rollout a joint HOP/Supergold card in the Auckland region

    1. Last I heard the MSD weren’t interested. Also heard AT looked into it and found Supergold cards didn’t even have identification details they could use I.e. the magnetic strip in them is completely blank, doesn’t even have a card number on it.

    2. I may have misunderstood your comment GW, but I’m pretty sure that a Supergoldcard can be pre-loaded onto a Hop card. There’s nothing about that on the website though (old or new), so I may have got it wrong. Or maybe you were suggesting the opposite arrangement.

        1. Thanks Bryce. I tried every combination (eg supergoldcard, super gold card)that I could think of but not supergold. Doesn’t say much for their search engine; they must be using the same one that Yellow does.

        2. Found easily using concession but I have left feedback on the AT website that they should add Super Gold Card and Gold Card to their search criteria.

      1. I think Greenwelly is suggesting that instead of having a supergold card and a HOP card that there be a special version of the HOP card produced that is also a supergold card with the concession already loaded. Point being that when someone gets a card they already have the HOP stuff loaded and ready to go.

  4. I think the key is making it so easy to get a card that it takes the pain out of it. A couple of simple ideas:

    1. Drop the barrier to entry by putting the card cost as credit on the card (i.e. pay $10 for the card, get $10 of travel for ‘free’). Even a partial credit would be better than none at all.
    2. More places to buy and top-up. Offer reasonable incentives for dairies and the like to have a machine.
    3. Ensure that it works as reliably as possible. Ensure top-up machines are well maintained etc.

    Once cash fares drop to around 20% you can start cranking up the cash price. Give folk a bit of time with the carrot before you hit them with the stick. The obvious thing with cash fares is to round to the nearest dollar though to keep the change simple.

    1. Number 1 already happens in effect, you pay ten dollars for the card but can go into the negative for one trip, which can be up to $9.27. You are effectively buying the overdraft.

      The problem with any idea of having credit is that people could simply get a hop, use up the credit and go into the negative and get $20 of fares for $10. Then they throw it away and get another one, ad infinitum. Likewise with free card, get free card, go into negative, throw away, get new free card.

      The only way to overcome that is to remove the ability to make the last trip and go into negative, but I think that is an incredibly useful feature that stops people getting stranded.

      Having said that, a one off bonus of getting the card cost back as credit when you *register* the card could work, if it was a once per person thing.

  5. I forgot to mention in the post that one thing I’d like to see is bus drivers having a stash of HOP cards loaded with cash. Of someone goes to pay with a $20 note then the only ticket they can buy is a loaded card which they can then tag on with.

    1. The Amsterdam GVB bus and tram network have a stack of 12 euro 48 hour time-limited preloaded MIFARE ULTRALIGHT paper cards on a clipboard by the driver console so that drivers can sell those cards immediately to any passenger paying cash for a single journey. Those ULTRALIGHT paper cards work on any DESFIRE card reader throughout the network and activate on the first reader they’re placed against (the one right next to the bus or tram front door in this instance). Oslo uses the ULTRALIGHT tickets in a similar way as does Dubai. The ticketing systems in Oslo and Dubai are both Thales and are mirror images of the config / setup deployed in Auckland.

    2. Smart idea Matt. Like. Getting a preloaded card on the bus is hassle free and yeah you pay cash you get preloaded card.

  6. The work AT is doing to implement an integrated bus and rail service structure Auckland-wide, is based on the goal of being a ‘Turn up and go’ system. The HOP card ‘service’ needs to be as much Turn up and go oriented as the physical bus and rail services. Right now, there are too many barriers to entry in the way HOP functionality and service access is being provided.

    Offering preloaded fully functioning MIFARE DESFIRE EV1 HOP cards for sale at AT Customer Service Centres in $20, $30, $40 and $50 denominations would be an easy first start to make the HOP system more accessible to a greater percentage of the population in Auckland. Also offer a HOP Lite card (MIFARE ULTRALIGHT) as a Family Pass, Daily Pass and a 12 trip ticket (10 + 2) with the last two trips free. Can sell these ULTRALIGHT tickets preloaded at any retail outlet as they dont require registration to work straight out of the starting block. A combined ZCard and MIFARE ULTRALIGHT ticket would work as a 1-3 day tourist pass or as a weekend pass.

    1. I agree with you Rob, doesn’t seem to be much of a concern but we need to shift to having even single trips on the RF system using disposable paper tickets. This I think is essential if we have a zone based system. A single ticket paper print under a zone system means upteen bus drivers and rail staff eyballing paper and checking dates, times and zones. A disposable single use hop takes care of all that, and it would be very simple for drivers consoles to issue them, while ticket machines might need a module added… or perhaps it just spits out a blank in the coin return slot and you have to stick it on the hop reader yourself.

      I believe the cost of a disposable paper hop would be about 20c per unit, which is fine because we should be charging more for singles anyway.

      1. Correct Nick. Its 20 -30 cents per unit to produce/print run ULTRALIGHT RF tickets.

        Close to home, Singapore is a good example of an integrated bus / train network using DESFIRE-style stored value cards and ULTRALIGHT-style disposable RF tickets.

        Two methods of journey payment on a common platform doth a proper transit network make.

        The sooner thermal paper ticket usage in Auckland gets superceded with ULTRALIGHT RF ticket usage, the better.

        The good thing about ULTRALIGHT RF ticketing is that you don’t have to replace the thermal paper dispenser units in the rail ticket machines and bus consoles. ULTRALIGHT tickets can be sold preloaded by the bus driver or at any supermarket checkout, convenience store counter. It means that having a limited retail network for selling / managing fully functioning DESFIRE EV1 HOP cards is not a problem anymore.

        The ULTRALIGHT RF tickets effectively have their own sales channel using the existing retail infrastructure and payment methods – exact same sales / payment process as for a prepaid phone card. This immediately expands the number of purchase access points city-wide without costly investment in additional technology.

        1. Ok so we can introduce them as prepaid daily pass tourist type tickets in parallel to thermal print, then phase out thermal print entirely.

        2. ULTRALIGHTs can be a daily pass, a family pass, a 10-12 trip ticket, even a single journey ticket for ticket inspectors to sell on the spot to fare evaders (likewise can be read by the mobile HOP readers the inspectors carry to ensure fare payment compliance). It would certainly help reduce gate staff opex at interchange stations.

          I personally would not eliminate use of the thermal ticket all together as it still has its place as a one-off single journey method of payment for those situations when there ends up being no passenger access to an ULTRALIGHT ticket dispening facility. All current ticket machines at stations and on buses have thermal printers installed anyway so it would be silly I believe, at least for the next 3 years, to remove that functionality all together. ULTRALIGHTs will take the place of up to 99% of thermal paper ticket usage in Auckland. That remaining 1% of ticketing system access provision should be left allocated to thermal ticket usage however, providing overall, a ‘2.5’ method of journey payment setup. A 2-method journey payment system is good, a 2.5 system is even better.

  7. Retailer network still sparse. Ie in West Auckland only places to buy card are New Lynn station and Te Atatu and Westgate superettes.
    Similar issues in south, only Manukau, Papakura and TakeNote Clendon. If you primarily use Manurewa but don’t go to city not much chance to buy one.
    Not really good enough. Should set up temporary stalls at major locations like Henderson and Manurewa rail/bus interchange to sell people cards.

    1. No need for pop up HOP sales stalls. Deploy ULTRALIGHT RF prepaid tickets instead through various retail outlets. Its a great way to get people into the HOP system and to put them on the path to be upsold to a fully functioning HOP card further down the track.

  8. I would have thought that a Top-Up machine in every AC service centre, library and regional facility with the stores at the latter selling card’s too was a no-brainer.. Alas it looks like the silo mentatlity is still strong despite amalgamation 🙁 Ditto getting a machine into each shopping mall with card sales and the mall customer services centre if agreement with them can be reached

  9. Forgot to add – also move to a 50 cent policy a la Wellington at the fare review this year and make the differential 20% with the goal of getting to 50% or higher in 3 years. Part subsidise the card too e.g. $20 HOP at Auckland Airport gets you the card and enough credit to get in to town on the Airbus Express for visitors, $10 HOP comes with $5 pre-loaded or similar

  10. Since overseas visitors to a city are likely to use a good PT system a lot (like my family did in Melbourne – and had to PAY for Myki cards!) we could give ‘temporary’ HOP cards to all inbound O’seas tourists … That’d up boardings & HOP use a little bit – and maybe put a smile on visitor’s faces! … Maybe something to consider when the new (bus) network rolls out.

  11. Have more Adult Discounts & concessions for AT Hop card users, e.g 65 plus card to reduce ticket issuing by bus drivers when passengers show their Super Gold Card. Job Seeker Card for the those on benefits looking for work. The Oyster Card in the UK is an example AT Hop should follow.

      1. Yeah, like pensioners are just going to waste $15 on that ($10 min topup, $5 hop card), and registering online will be difficult for some also, the minimum should be $1 like it is on the ticket machines, otherwise its stupid, snapper let you top up as little as you wanted. Not to mention the $10 would be useless as they probably don’t travel before 9am anyway. Plus running the card under can be done anyway $10 initial balance or not. My AT hop card got disabled a few weeks ago, they couldn’t explain why and said they “don’t have access to their own database”, rubbish like that is sure to put many people off hop and on to paying cash, a sure way to not be thrown off the bus without warning despite having sufficient funds on the card. If they were less concerned with lining their pockets and more concerned with AT hop kicking ass, their would be far less issues and far more people using the system.

  12. Auckland Transport need to give much better terms to HOP retailers. NZ Bus can seemingly get sales and top-up throughout Wellington, but AT have decided on a regime that limits the availability of their product to the public.

  13. Why can’t we sell them at stations with dispensing machines? Similarly, we should be able to buy them on buses, with a prepaid $10 card instantly available. Really simple stuff that AT are stuffing up.

    1. Why don’t they just sell space for a vending machine at each station, on condition that Hop cards get one of the slots? Revenue positive, since typically vending machine companies will install and service the machine for free, plus give you a cut of sales.

      Might cost a little bit to make the vending machines as vandal-proof as the ticket and topup machines, but otherwise, why not? There’s already some at Britomart (although they don’t sell Hop, since you can just go to the office to buy one).

  14. There definitely need to be more retailers for the cards. The Mt Eden bus route only has cards for sale/top up at Britomart and Mt Eden Village. Nothing further south of the village, all the way out to Waikowhai

    Pre-paid cards at supermarkets seems to be a no brainer. The already have whole racks of other cards for sale.

  15. An option for a family pass card would be awesome. Both of the adults in our house have HOP cards but the kids don’t (they walk to school). We always try to use public transport if we go to events in the city and it is a pain to have to find cash for the kids. Yes we could get them cards but they would be so rarely used, I would be afraid of running into AT’s “use it or lose it” policy.

  16. I was surprised you didn’t comment on Rudman’s mention of the machine not working. That happened on my bus the other day but the driver told passengers cash only he didnt let anyone travel free. I thought the Snapper tag off problem was over with HOP? Not so. What’s going on?

    1. All machines stop working from time to time. Of course, when the HOP readers fail, the logical thing to do is offer the journey for free. Customer service 101.

    2. If the hop machine is broken just get on the bus and sit down. You are able to pay for an essential service you are entitled to receive it whether the bus is able to accept your payment or not

  17. But what I want to know is what other ideas readers have for getting HOP into the hands of more people (other than those discussed in the article)
    cities all over the world have successful cards already. Don’t need new ideas, just apply those ones that are already proven and working:
    1 eliminate the 25c top up shame, for christ sake!
    2 increase the discount on hop
    3 make it available more easily in more places.
    yesterday.

  18. That cash fare % isn’t too bad given how new the system is. In Australia, they’d kill for that sort of take up.

    In the longer term, the only way to get rid of cash ticket sale annoyances is to not have cash ticket sales, at least on buses. Ideally, you’d have a lite version of the Hop card which you could pay for with a paywave/paypass when boarding the bus. No cash handling on buses! I’d question the need for two versions of the card though. Just allow refunds of Hop cards including the deposit, as is done in Qld.

    1. Sinagapore’s EZ-Link cards are refundable, and still usable after 2 years away! They also have a plastic return ticket that gives $1 refund if you can find the right machine at the end of your journey.

  19. Was going to suggest selling it in supermarkets (like SIM cards), but might mislead people into thinking you could top up there too, which would be a harder thing to make happen.

  20. I spoke to a dairy owner on Jervois Rd in December when I was looking for somewhere to transfer my Snapper balance to HOP. She has a Snapper machine but not HOP. Apparently she’d asked but been told she *couldn’t have one* because another dairy down the road had a HOP machine, and they only needed 1 within a certain area.

    The only reason I can fathom for this is that someone at AT is taking the minimum recommended top-up machine distribution and applying it as a maximum. Which is ridiculous. We need HOP in every dairy, every supermarket, post office, airport, etc, otherwise it will not work.

    AT need to urgently look at their policy around HOP for retailers and make it work, or they’ll be shooting themselves in the foot.

    1. I’m pretty sure the dairy owner wasn’t offering to buy the Hop terminal and run it however, surely she had asked to have one for free to draw in customers.

      AT probably can’t afford to stick one in every dairy, supermarket etc in Auckland, so have to plan things systematically and only have one in each area.

      1. Well she’d had a Snapper one & wanted HOP to replace it, so I assume that she’d asked on the same terms? I don’t know how Snapper ran their machines. AT need to factor in reasonable rates or cheap trial periods or something for dairies if they want HOP to work. It needs to be ubiquitous.

      2. Also all interchanges & stations should sell HOP cards, and that’s AT’s area. So again, should have factored this in & made it possible.

      3. The snapper terminals were just eftpos machines while the AT HOP terminals are POS quite costly but if dairies can could it renting them out wouldn’t be bad idea should expand the retail into better locations and hours like Takapuna’s retailer is only open 9-5 WTF

  21. I heard Auckland Transport advertisement on the radio this morning – about AT Hop cards. How timely!

  22. what a non issue what a smoke screen . at the end of the day who cares . elderly will die in their holmes this winder because of the horrendous prices of electricity .if you took more interest in these issues then maybe we could all put some money away and start getting ahead . nobody should be trowing away hundreds and hundreds of dollars of their income just on power and thats just power . would those hundreds of dollars basically stolen vis legalized theft be better in your own bank accounts making you money . i think 60% of the country are right on that tipping point were the cost of living destroys all their hopes and dreams . we are hard working people we get no benefits from the state . i hate to think what it is like for the dirt poor .LETS GET BACK TO THE REAL ISSUES .athe internet party assault in uni some should leave you little doubt the media are just the propaganda arm of the government attacking and trying to destroy mr dot com and his party for the national party . they are frightened to death of dotcoms party that it will take votes from national because of its freedom and liberty message .they are scared shiteless of the internet party . i beleave the man to be full of poison and hold grudges is john key look at that poor journo from the tea pot tapes key houned him for two years threatening take every cent the man had .just for spite .the wellington regine is last for economic growth in the country i cant see this bs booming economy they are bs ing about .last stone cold motherless last , thats tory revenge for being the only part of the country not brainwashed bye the national owned mainstream media .

    1. Er Bernard this is the Transport Blog. Feel free to start up the electricity blog or the internet party blog.

  23. Best thing I can think of is to not need the card – get the damn app working NFC enabled phones (IE pretty much every Android out there)
    Given that’s where everyone’s wallet is heading pretty fast with the TSM initiative if they don’t get there quickly either way (cash or physical card) is going to be seen as an inconvenience to most.

    I already don’t know what’s taking so long to roll out something that was in ‘working beta’ nearly 2 years ago – unless that was FUD given Snapper has been working on the mobile phone for that entire time?

    Seriously though would be really nice being able to check on an app whether you’ve just checked on or not while walking into the station at the end of the day (when you’re a bit on auto pilot and after standing at the station for 5 minutes aren’t really sure anymore)

    1. Also to the original point – what’s an easier way to get a Hop card into peoples hands than to point out they’ve already got it (by downloading a free app)?

  24. And over on planet Grumpy,

    “Press Release by New Zealand First at 7:31AM, 02 Apr 2014
    ———————————————–

    New Zealand First is urging SuperGold Cardholders who travel for free on Auckland public transport not to waste their money buying a prepaid card.

    New Zealand First Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says seniors are being pressured to spend $15 on an Auckland Transport prepaid HOP card and advises those who have done so to demand their money back.

    “SuperGold Cardholders should demand their money back if they paid $5 for the card and the minimum $10 prepaid credit because the HOP card is simply an attack on the elderly.

    “Auckland Transport’s HOP-card campaign has already signed up 11,129 SuperGold Cardholders.

    “That means Auckland Transport has fleeced more than $166,000 from seniors who gain no advantage from buying the tag-on, tag-off card,” says Mr Peters, who introduced the SuperGold Card in 2007. “It is a grand confidence trick.”

    “All they need for travel on the bus or for a train or ferry ticket is their SuperGold Card. They can travel free in Auckland from 9am on weekdays and all day on weekends and public holidays.

    “A SuperGold Cardholder told us she would never use the $10 she was forced to load on the card and quite rightly asked, what is Auckland Transport doing with all the money,” says Mr Peters.

    The SuperGold Card provides senior citizens with a range of discounts and travel concessions through the 10,000 businesses that take part.

    ENDS”

    1. But lots of Super Gold Car users travel at peak times and need to pay for fares. These people will hold services up.

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