Just over 11 years ago, HOP as we know it today was first launched to the public. Overall the system has worked well and having a single integrated transport ticket was one of the instrumental elements that helped transform public transport in Auckland.
The system was meant to be the basis for a nationwide system but for a number of reasons, that never eventuated and across the country we have a number of different systems. Change is coming though and Waka Kotahi are currently in the process of building a nationwide public transport ticketing system to replace all existing public transport payment systems such as HOP, Snapper and Bee with a single solution.
The National Ticketing Solution is a convenient, reliable and cost-effective solution aimed at providing more ways for customers to pay for public transport.
Customers will be able to choose what payment method works best for them. They will be able to pay for public transport using contactless debit or credit cards, as well as digital payment methods like Apple Pay or Google Pay, while still offering the option of using a pre-paid transit card.
The NTS will increase people’s ability to travel safely, easily and independently, leading to more people using buses, rail and ferries more often.
The National Ticketing Solution project aims to improve public transport for New Zealanders through a standardised approach to paying for public transport which will provide a common customer experience no matter where you are in the country.
The first pilot will begin in 2024 in Canterbury with all other regions transitioned to the NTS by 2026.
Auckland will most likely be the last region to change to the new ticketing system, however, some of the benefits of the new system, such as the ability to tag on using credit cards or phone wallets will be rolled out to HOP too, which I assume is about helping to ease the transition.
Before that happens though, a recent experience has me concerned that AT has a customer experience headache heading its way.
Last Thursday I went to catch a bus to work. It was the first time I had used my HOP card for a few weeks due to having been away on holiday and I mostly ride my bike for commuting these days.
Getting on the bus I went to tag-on but the card wouldn’t work. Being not fully light and a bit surprised I didn’t read the machine properly but I assumed this was for insufficient funds – which is odd because I thought there was money on the card. Checking later I did have $48 on the card. Thankfully the bus driver just let me on anyway and I made my journey to Constellation Station.
Arriving at Constellation Station I went to top my card up only for the machine to tell me that the card was invalid. I was shocked, how is my card invalid. I’ve been using the same HOP card with no issues since before HOP was even public – having been part of a pilot group – I even still had the silver sticker on it.
Thankfully Constellation Station has a customer service desk so I went find out what was happening. It was here that I was told my HOP card had expired.
WHAT, who knew that HOP cards expire.
I was then told I could be given a new card and the balance would be transferred over in a few days, but to use it that day I’d have to put more money on it. It seems odd that AT can now top up HOP cards in an hour but that their staff can’t transfer a balance immediately. More concerning though was that while putting some cash on it for the day isn’t an issue for me, I can imagine there are a lot of people whose budgets don’t allow for that.
The final insult was that I wasn’t allowed to get my original card back (I did ask).
Overall, the process was pretty seamless and thanks to the bus driver letting me on, I had no real issues with my travel but the experience did raise some big questions/concerns for me.
- Given how quickly the staff member dealt with it, I’m assuming this is not the first time staff have had to deal with this issue, or AT have been preparing for it. Alternatively, was the expiry issue tied to the recent issues of the HOP system being hacked? Either way, why have AT not communicated that this is an issue and attempted to proactively fix it. I had no knowledge that my card had expired until it stopped working when I tried to use it. There was also nothing I can see on my AT account that indicates a card expiry date.
- Seeing as I had a HOP card before most, I assume there are a lot of other HOP cards out there that will be coming up for expiry soon. Does this mean a lot of HOP users will soon have this happen to them? This could be particularly problematic for irregular PT users.
- I feel that I was lucky that the bus driver just let me on. What happens if one doesn’t, or what if someone tries to tag on at a gated station that doesn’t have a customer service desk (or it is after-hours), will security guards let them through the gates?
- Speaking of customer service centres, my journey just happened to pass through one but there are lots of journeys out there that won’t. How many people are going to end up having to fork out to buy a new card or go out of their way to get to customer service centre.
- It may not seem like much, but I did have a bit of sentimentality to that card and losing it was perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the whole experience. But what happens if you are using another unique card, such as one of the limited edition cards AT released when the electric trains launched.
While it certainly wasn’t the worse experience I’ve had with using public transport in Auckland, there are some areas for improvement that AT need to make, especially if this is about to significant issue.
Has anyone else experienced their card expiring?
Processing...
I was thinking the same thing about customer service centres. The vast majority of PT users aren’t going to have a clue where to find one. I certainly wouldn’t.
Britomart perhaps? But that’s a long way out of the way for me and a lot of other people.
There are customer service centres at the major stations/interchanges – https://at.govt.nz/about-us/contact-us/customer-service-centres/
That still means that people who begin their journeys at locations without customer service centres are screwed. I know I would be – I’d be completely stranded.
> people who begin their journeys at locations without customer service centres are screwed.
i would think that means 95+% of customers are screwed.
The last time I passed through any of those locations was more than three years ago. In 2023 you shouldn’t have to visit a particular physical location to sort out something like this.
What a hoot. I bet Auckland Transport is rolling on the floor laughing their heads off, because they like it that way. like they need the money to pay for their money eating projects like moving a pedestrian crossing a few meters along the road on centerway road on Orewa, just to waste money.
You mad bro?
How long have you been fuming about a pedestrian crossing for, just waiting for a post on ticketing systems so you can let loose?
Yet another reason to axe this outdated system and move to the national one. HOP always has been below average, they love to cancel cards for no reason, I think I have been through 3 of them, all cancelled by AT just because my credit card expired and I didn’t think to change my auto top up (which is surely a voluntary top up). They eventually fixed that but it took them years. The HOP website looks like a bunch of crap pieced together, and I was not at all surprised when it was hacked. And then there is the issue that everything takes forever to work.
I reckon get rid of all concessions (why should frequent polluters get a discount) and just use the credit card system. Maybe create a special debit card for those who can’t get a bank one. Cheap, easy, simple, no barrier to entry.
“I reckon get rid of all concessions (why should frequent polluters get a discount) and just use the credit card system. Maybe create a special debit card for those who can’t get a bank one. Cheap, easy, simple, no barrier to entry.”
By frequent polluters I take it you mean people who use the bus or train to get to work every day rather than drive and create even more
pollution.
As for a special debit card for those who can’t get a bank credit card wow that sounds so loaded and judgemental.
Surely we want to make it easier for people to use public transport not harder. That means encouraging people to use it for as many trips as possible through the use of concessions.
It wasn’t meant to be judgemental. Kids for example can’t get debit cards (although if kids are free may as well just have an ID card). But that doesn’t mean AT can’t use the already existing fully tested debit card system, it just means AT needs to create their own debit card that can only be used for their services (probably in conjunction with a bank). Maybe this isn’t possible, but I doubt they have considered it. Or if you exclude kids, surely almost every adult can get a debit card? AFAIK it is prepay and no risk to the banks.
“Surely we want to make it easier for people to use public transport not harder” exactly what I want! Having to have yet another card in my wallet and maintain it (like I say they keep cancelling it), another website and another login, a $10 card fee, having to go to a service desk, tourists not able to easily use PT, wait times after topup, having to manage topup, accounts being hacked, are huge barriers for use.
Anyone who commutes by any means other than walking or cycling is a polluter (maybe diesel bus is debatably better than car, train obviously is). If commuting is artificially cheap then people will naturally work further from home, just like if electricity is artificially cheap we will all mine bitcoin. Regardless, my point is that giving concessions to some people is in effect charging other people more. They could axe the concessions, reduce the standard fares, and still make the same revenue. I really can’t see why someone making multiple trips per day/week/month is considered special and needs a cheaper fare than someone who makes one trip.
You are creating more problems than you are solving.
For starters what frequent use concessions are you talking about? Most are based on age or income levels or student status.
https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/at-hop-card/card-concessions-discount-fares
I say halve the fares for everyone, then limit the concept of discriminatory concessions to those who qualify for free travel for whatever reason. In other words, reinstate the half-fare subsidy-for-all that we had during Covid, and get rid of the complex web of reduced-fare discounts from an excessively-high ‘standard’ fare level. How will this be funded? How about ending some of the ‘hidden subsidies’ that car-users presently enjoy.
Actually walkers and cyclists also pollute due to the extra food needed as fuel and the relatively long supply chain moving kgs of “fuel” in many cases thousands of miles. In a full life cycle analysis 5 cyclists chomping on cheeseburgers for the extra calories are worse than 5 people car pooling in an electric car. The electric car also beats those same 5 people in a lightly loaded diesel bus or almost empty train. Those methods are only better when they are highly loaded.
Mr Do The Math, I think the key thing missed there is that drivers also eat those extra cheeseburgers, the only difference is that cyclists and pedestrians burn at least some of them off again 😀
Tommo that’s not actually true. There is an extra caloric output between sitting still and cycling, you don’t get work produced for free. You are either ‘fuelling’ an EV with green energy or ‘fuelling’ a cyclist with cheeseburgers. As it turns out producing and distributing the required amount of green electricity then dividing the requirement between five people in an EV is more green than producing and distributing the required amount of cheeseburgers to fuel five cyclists (including the total lifetime cost of the EV and the five cycles). The average AT Diesel bus carries 8 people (more in rush hour, less other times but on average 8 people) and is strictly worse environmentally than a couple of EVs plying the same route. it should be fairly obvious that buses are only better where you have the ridership to keep them nearly full.
*Do the math.
And when have you ever seen “…5 people car pooling in an electric car”? Also have you allowed for the non bikers travelling separately to go to the gym to keep their fitness up? By your thinking e-bikes must be super good then which is a a real thing. Can’t cherry pick comparisons.
Grant, e-bikes are indeed an environmentally superior alternative to cycling where you pedal yourself. As to purely recreational cycling, walking or other forms of unnecessary exercise well there you are choosing to cause environmental damage to further some other goal. Again basic math.
I believe there are a number of studies lately showing that exercise does not actually burn calories over the course of a day. Your body works to recoup those extra calories during downtime.
Therefore you can’t arbitrarily assign cheeseburger carbon footprint to cyclists and not to others.
“Anyone who commutes by any means other than walking or cycling is a polluter (maybe diesel bus is debatably better than car, train obviously is). If commuting is artificially cheap then people will naturally work further from home, just like if electricity is artificially cheap we will all mine bitcoin.” To be honest, I think your perspective is incredibly narrow-minded. The large majority of tertiary students travel to campus on PT (whether its by bus, train or ferry), and are often required to transfer services and therefore travel on 2 or more buses for a single journey, and a large portion of us travel from distances which are too far to walk or cycle. Further, a large portion of tertiary students work part-time outside of class in order to afford PT as well as our tuition and other course costs. Personally, even with the current youth discount, I still spend almost $8 a day on PT which adds up to $40/w and over $700 in a semester. Without the current concessions, I could not afford to travel to campus on the full fare as I am unable to work full-time on top of my tertiary schedule, and without PT, parking in the city can easily go over $50 a day, which is extraordinarily more expensive as it is.
Though class resources are made available online should we be forced to miss class, we should not be forced to study from home and miss out on vital in-class learning experience all because you personally dislike having another card in your wallet.
And there are like heaps of arguments to reduce your cheeseburger (meat) consumption to reduce your diet’s impact on the environment.
Food is also a regenerative form of energy while a lot of electricity is still produced by burning fossil fuels, so your argument of purely “green” energy for EVs is not valid yet.
Your basic math also does not include the added environmental costs of an EV by road wear, having large spaces dedicated to parking, tyre rub-off and, of course, all the initial environmental production costs that come with mining minerals, building huge steel frames and shipping them around the world.
So yeah, please show some valid sources for your claims.
it is of course possible to charge your EV at times when the NZ grid is predominantly on green renewable energy and that transition to completely renewable energy is well underway and is a relatively easy one to implement compared to getting everyone to cycle everywhere and eat lentils. And the analysis is a complete lifecycle one so does take into account all the factors that you mention. As an example of the math, A lot of fossil fuel is used in food production. Take a litre of oat milk and fly it here from Scandinavia and you’ve moved a kilo of mass 17,000 km in order to then use it as fuel to move a rider and bike a few km. Even ship that oat milk or pack of beef up to Auckland from the South Island that kilo has moved about 1000km before it gets used a fuel. And then include all the fossil fuel usage and other environmental impacts of oat or beef production and processing.
Almost all flour used in bread in New Zealand comes from Australia and a significant number of other food items are imported and have very high environmental footprint in their production.
That’s why what initially seems like a no brainer calculation in favour of the bicycle actually ends up favouring the EV when you add all that up. Food is an extremely environmentally expensive fuel compared to green electricity.
Also the environmental hit of high tech bike frame alloys is in some cases estimated at up to 500x that of basic steel for production. (mentioned since you chose steel to compare, many EVs use significant amounts of aluminium, but more basic more environmentally friendly alloys). If you’re being environmentally friendly buy a steel bike.
The fact that we can even talk about cheeseburger eating cyclists and EVs being the same order of magnitude shows just how off people are with their intuition on how the math might work out.
Again, do you have any evidence or sources for your claims? I would love to see a robust calculation.
Google is your friend in that regard. It’s a topic of quite some research and discussion as you might imagine. Compare the many sources, read their papers, decide what you want to believe. Also remember my assertion is based on EVs vs ICE vehicles. You’ll find plenty of sites that will tell you how a bicycle is say 10x better than a single person in a legacy ICE vehicle. That’s not the point being made here. The point is once you carpool (or implement shared ridership EV vehicles) the numbers for EVs beat cycling and eating a typical diet.
There are also metabolical aspects that you have not mentioned. If your extra cycling/activity needs 500 kcal more per day, a person on a normal diet would not need to consume 500 kcal more because a lot of the stuff you eat is not processed to 100% but leaves the system underutilized.
So overall, this probably makes up less than 25% of your regular diet of 2000 kcal per day.
So yeah, I am trying to do the math but cannot come up with the numbers you claim. Please show some evidence for them.
Yeah nah, this starts to sound like ‘Do your own research!’ on vaccines, climate change or the flat earth. You claimed something, please provide legitimate sources.
Even if what you say is true for 5 people in an EV, how often do you see 5 people carpooling in an EV? How far do they have to go with less than 5 people in a car to pick up everybody?
Onewa Road T3 lane is usually quite empty while single occupant vehicles (both EVs and ICEs) are jammed for kilometers every morning.
Car pooling has a lot of the disadvantages of cars AND public transport, while the advantages are limited. No wonder it has never really taken off except in some extremely limited circumstances where high congestion and extensive HOV lanes combine.
Disadvantages:
– you don’t travel at a time and route you choose freely yourself
– you have to travel with others, potentially total strangers
– you are still stuck in the same congestion, unless there are extensive HOV lanes
– You have to depend on others for reliability of service
– You have time loss for change of transport at start and end
Advantages
– you don’t need to own or park a car
– It may be a bit cheaper and better for the planet
– IF there’s sufficient HOV lanes AND congestion you may be a bit faster (but even then you may lose that time advantage due to the delays at the start and end of the trip)
In nearly all the above instances, PT is better for mid-distance trips, and walking or cycling for shorter ones. Car pooling in my view is a fake “solution” that’s often forms part of the things put forward by people who feel we don’t need to invest in better infra and services for non-car modes. Obviously there’s people promoting it in good faith, but that doesn’t make it viable.
“Car pooling has a lot of the disadvantages of cars AND public transport”
Technology and shared ride services can mitigate this. After all what is a bus but a publicly run ‘car’ pool Just one that is often too large for the job at hand. It also comes with its own restrictions on routes and timing and significant wasted energy costs in often empty back trips and repositioning.
The math doesn’t actually depend on whether the asset is publicly owned, just how full it is and it’s CO2e per passenger km.
Try thinking outside the box a bit. If you can encourage strangers to get together in a bus you have an even better chance of convincing them on smaller and more environmentally efficient shared door to door services dynamically arranged through a technology platform mitigating a lot of the traditional disadvantages of carpools that you mention. Electric buses and trains are just fine and when you can fill them and better than smaller EVs when you can amortise the extra energy required to move them over more passengers. But they are strictly mathematically worse when occupancy is low. And diesel buses even when full struggle to compete environmentally with the same number of people in distinct EVs powered by green energy. If you’re not on a nearly full bus you should feel sad about the environmental impact of its emptiness.
Do you though? The advantage of a large bus is its anonymity. When it’s empty, I have two seats for myself and my bag, when it’s full, nobody is expected to talk to me either. 5 people in a car? me in the middle seat?
If you make it door-to-door, then you have one designated driver that needs to drive a somewhat empty car around (like a bus driver!). Of course, you can make the cars bigger (minivans) and include more people. How likely is it that everyone can get on and off significantly closer to home/work than the next bus stop without going long distances with less than maximum occupation which decreases the efficiency?
If you replace busses with cars/minivans during rush hour, you will have more traffic on the roads. If you keep the busses for rush hour only, you will have to provide both big and smaller busses, store them, maintain them and find drivers to drive them.
I actually did some literature research and could not find any paper supporting your claim. Please provide a paper as a starting point for further research.
Harold says:
In nearly all the above instances, PT is better for mid-distance trips, and walking or cycling for shorter ones. Car pooling in my view is a fake “solution” that’s often forms part of the things put forward by people who feel we don’t need to invest in better infra and services for non-car modes. Obviously there’s people promoting it in good faith, but that doesn’t make it viable.
The thing is sometimes it is viable, it is after all where the idea of Uber came from.
No it doesn’t work for everyone but that doesn’t mean it isn’t viable. The staff buss put on by Synlait is just car pooling on a bigger scale in my opinion. Yes they still have a car park for those who drive there themselves.
Anyone who does shift work and does not have access to public transport could potentially be better of car pooling. I know some of the staff where my husband works car pool and do so because it reduces they amount of wear and tear on their vehicles. They do a week each as being the driver. Why have four vehicles making the same trip to work when you are all arriving and leaving at the same time. Public transport is not an option and never will be, the distance travelled is too far to cycle.
@C Kilgour: Great example of environmentally friendly carpooling! It is definitely better than each person driving by themselves. And of course, some factors like distance, time of day and poor infrastructure for cycling or PT can make alternatives less feasible.
The initial claim was that this was somehow more environmentally friendly than each person cycling to work which I highly doubt. Research in the field of carbon-emissions of commuting is really interesting but I cannot find a paper supporting any of the claims made. For example, this study https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/271737/1-s2.0-S1361920921X00077/1-s2.0-S1361920921001954/main.pdf?X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjENj%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJGMEQCIHYCNISuZtVUMgCVrwNFvQumXwv1q9kbpnqGkxenjE9SAiBOQrqbXfRPXwwxtYJgil42r1%2FlS%2Ft%2FZLUl8foRsCtxWCq8BQjh%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F8BEAUaDDA1OTAwMzU0Njg2NSIMP6I4JTpCuYX8vsM0KpAFBEKD07xakj39iN8SN4ztq%2FIpXfdJgkpharboLxym5taJ1v0FAlSO5a2kv%2BMZAy11pbBTCCiRmMx2Am0iBOUCQ4GuiGhJ9wIFweeVWLsQupFPZ2WYqBRBl%2F7%2FZzcpAZjREANL5IbVU7PL0Hxuafm%2B75GK2bpAIglc7OFQcE3I%2Bk81IK5t8%2Fqk%2F4X1MIWjz9xDY%2FREGAheUkdIqFyYKcMLQUWyXA3O2Rvn%2B3jQ8OkT2uZ3TSAMQQogANk55r0%2B2HjxvOetnAfF4EdwZePDZPw8%2F84uv0cszFeWDXnxQp5gSPdMqe4xf43BFd6Pb%2F1tuKyEgayimzstVotBhy9G36L6NdlyySrA61wKImAwJx0RWAtsXxskG87E2cg2hVlR0%2FRkXunSMgQv4mWldjxRnChYjAfHYJ3JwrAy1WvZQa9nQeKV%2Bw9MlPZVcJazOMFsJ1jtFsIuf2eGEVPKt3HpzwByO41CvNgFuqtGMznsfWUPn0wnADL3%2B2OC0OGGao57IuRWYwJgpFkPoVp29tE3JV0Gcb4k83PpRDwOslxc0cNOPsO6In%2BU40q2J8TFanfe9o%2FteV01012BXkU0p78b76uRYFRNZPx%2FcYND%2BzutvIZ6r2GMXKFVgVZa%2FMM6UsjvhLHmmbmJ8JpdD9Es3fcF3vtPNCEAY8oCIehH2m6mFqDm1sqLXNEk8kgu09sPNwAL9KfajboERL3c%2FQP%2B7%2F3LsAdZjTM14v0KaPhqKFrzo317YgkXvCuu2puUFqRXkBD8QMV2Dla2uaJyW7QZgyR0%2BZ2Wqfcud07MgQh25CNqp4BCoDHxkKADnsvPQ0BGbrohGOM9hCPb0zKu3tRTKGWA0YfZbmZXGC0jkHhKBmOO%2F8BAdlowzL6XqQY6sgHxl67RinTY%2BggdnAT%2BJaDGv4wMromAGdjvtvca1yc5MrdoAnT9Rr137uXwUL%2ForxRISd6igFdF6H2Ev2J3VQMSu3kcTNIspAVx08PPtdP4AHSgPFwKqGGkRi0c2SAmw2XjUI%2FO21Z8X934y%2BpZcEa3bDvGOWU0IC7SwJNMTlWdVhO%2BFpHjT32ck3B6nr1zGnksYQQWhbbkHrGhYQJkXEnwRdo0XVu6UTELbEtbzizAxzju&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20231010T235323Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAQ3PHCVTY6O3H2EP7%2F20231010%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=cfd93a8488aec268928783e7feabb37ac9775353922df7f18daeef1b4d899631&hash=33f9d2fb2bfa00fb36e07574de6b1282c616daade56f8ccc8cde6d4842ba4830&host=68042c943591013ac2b2430a89b270f6af2c76d8dfd086a07176afe7c76c2c61&pii=S1361920921001954&tid=spdf-42cb5281-eab7-40cf-89ae-5c2bb5346fe8&sid=09a8f362937cb64caf5b9b32fba7e8c6844cgxrqa&type=client&tsoh=d3d3LnNjaWVuY2VkaXJlY3QuY29t&ua=081957515755075c5b53&rr=8142c8533c5a1c62&cc=nz rates walking and cycling at 0.0 gCO2/pas-km while cars are rated at 135.8 gCO2/pas-km.
Urban Bus at 76.6 gCO2/pas-km is surprisingly bad, too. But given that these were evaluated on the average occupation of all vehicles, you cannot assume that you could divide the value for cars by 5 while still keeping the value for busses at average.
From the above study:
“However, when estimating the CO2 emission factors, the time spent in traffic jams or time
spent looking for a parking space is not considered, so that figures could be underestimated for cars, motorcycles, and taxis.
Private cars and taxis produce the most CO2 emissions per passenger and kilometre, while rail modes such as metro and suburban
trains are the lowest emitting motorised transport modes. Modal shift strategies to steer the university community towards public
transport and soft modes are therefore one of the actions to achieve low-carbon mobility.”
“The advantage of a large bus is its anonymity. When it’s empty, I have two seats for myself and my bag, when it’s full, nobody is expected to talk to me either.”
Same would apply to a small people mover. Ever got an airport shuttle and spend all your time chatting to your seat mates? But also having large empty buses so you can feel comfortable not talking to people is not the goal here. If you’re in an empty or even half empty bus an EV or even multiple EVs is a strictly better environmental alternative.
“you have one designated driver”
Only until automation removes that role.
“you will have to provide both big and smaller busses”
The population already supplies many of these smaller “buses” you speak of. A simple incentive like having 4 people in your automated vehicle gets you onto the busway would solve that issue and better utilise existing busway capacity. Note I say automated since you don’t want humans messing up the flow. Overseas HOV lane access has proven quite sufficient to have the population rather than local government invest in vehicles that speed up their commute. I’m sure that’d translate here.
“If you replace busses with cars/minivans during rush hour, you will have more traffic on the roads.”
Platooned automated EVs (be they cars, minivans, minibuses or full sized buses) greatly increase road capacity. And you can mix high and low capacity vehicles in platoons as needed depending on the number of people going in a particular direction.
Sometimes you have to look to the future for the solutions the future needs, not to the past. And autonomous vehicles are going to change the way you end up thinking about these things.
Where sustained capacity requirements require it of course the system dispatches a bus rather than a people mover or EV. Just because YOU can’t think of a way to not send empty buses all over Auckland at all times of day and night doesn’t mean that it is impossible to do so.
Apart from comparing energy use in cycling vrs PT & EV cars there are other reasons to cycle:
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/cycling-health-benefits
Agree with Harold above, good clear response.
“you cannot assume that you could divide the value for cars by 5 while still keeping the value for busses at average.”
I don’t assume it, I state it as a precondition for better efficiency. An EV with one person is worse than a single cheeseburger eating cyclists. But take a fully load an EV vs five cheeseburger eating cyclists and the math flips in favour of the EV.
You can introduce other assumptions like a 100% coal fired EV, a vegan cyclist eating locally grown lentils but I’d contend greening the grid, incentivising higher vehicle occupancy, rightsizing and greening up the public transport fleet and improving adoption with faster door to door services is an easier goal compared to the entire population taking up cycle commuting and becoming vegans. Also analysis that includes ICE vehicles is not particularly relevant. For future planning we can reasonably assume we’re comparing to EVs running on green energy not legacy ICE vehicles.
The interesting thing is when you play with those parameters you still end up with cycling and EVs being the same order of magnitude. That’s the result you seem to be unable to get to. And it’s largely because food is such an environmentally expensive fuel to produce and transport compared to green electricity.
“Apart from comparing energy use in cycling vrs PT & EV cars there are other reasons to cycle:”
That doesn’t affect the math of the argument, merely that you are prepared to cause some extra environmental damage for some personal benefit. A shorter lifespan is actually better for your lifetime carbon footprint, so living longer is actually a net negative strategy environmentally. Not that I’m advocating that tradeoff but it’s a mathematically sound conclusion.
Funny how this conversation is so off topic but anyway:
“… but I’d contend greening the grid, incentivising higher vehicle occupancy, rightsizing and greening up the public transport fleet and improving adoption with faster door to door services is an easier goal compared to the entire population taking up cycle commuting and becoming vegans.”
We can, and ARE generally doing all these things anyay. Even free GST on fruit & vege’s may help this. I think there is move towards more sustainable & locally grown (or more efficient all things considered) food production as well. AT’s “Local” service is an interesting thing to see how that goes perhaps.
Ok, one last time: Do you have any evidence? Any source for the numbers you claim? I could not find anything and have provided a scientific paper which accredits 0.0 gCO2/pas-km to walking and cycling.
@Do the Math
The interesting thing is when you play with those parameters you still end up with cycling and EVs being the same order of magnitude. That’s the result you seem to be unable to get to. And it’s largely because food is such an environmentally expensive fuel to produce and transport compared to green electricity.
Your whole argument seems to me to come down to cyclists eat more food than people driving.
As I sometimes drive and sometimes cycle I can state that I do not change the amount of food I consume based on the mode of transport I have planned for the day.
“As I sometimes drive and sometimes cycle I can state that I do not change the amount of food I consume based on the mode of transport I have planned for the day.”
This may be true over a week where your body will store extra calories on light days and draw down more on heavier exercise days. but I can assure you if you add another hour of aerobic exercise a day, every day consistently over your current baseline you will lose weight or add more calories to your diet to compensate. If not you’re the holy grail of physics, a perpetual motion machine that can create energy out of nothing which will interestingly, assuming you can be appropriately replicated, also be a solution to our green energy problem by placing large banks of your clones on treadmills, or using them as tuk tuk drivers for those who do not possess the “energy out of nothing” gene.
@Do The Math
“add another hour of aerobic exercise a day, every day ”
Who said I was adding another hour of aerobic exercise a day, every day?
Actually I could do with getting rid of some fat but that doesn’t mean I’ll weigh less if I replace it with muscle but I don’t cycle fast enough to work up a sweat so I doubt that will happen very fast.
Your world seems to be filled with absolutes that have no connection with my reality. You also have refused to give any proof baking up what you are saying.
Cycling burns about 300 calories per hour, so an average commute consumes about half a peanut butter sandwich worth of fuel.
Driving consumes about 25,000 calories per hour.
You do the math.
“Your world seems to be filled with absolutes that have no connection with my reality.”
Ok, take a hypothetical person and add an hour’s aerobic exercise to their day in perpetuity. Assuming their weight was stable already they will lose weight as they draw down on stored energy (not sustainable forever) and eventually consume more food to maintain a stable weight for a given average energy output. This shouldn’t be a surprising or contentious result.
Your reality is not connected to actual reality by science, so can hardly objectively be called reality.
“Cycling burns about 300 calories per hour, so an average commute consumes about half a peanut butter sandwich worth of fuel.
Driving consumes about 25,000 calories per hour.”
Your numbers are not even remotely correct for a cyclist moving at a decent commuting pace (say 25kph) or for a modern EV with usage amortised over 5 passengers or for the caloric content of peanut butter sandwiches. Not to mention we’re discussing cheeseburger powered cyclists not PBJ powered ones. ICE numbers are not relevant to the discussion.
But also remember the flour for the bread probably came 2500km by sea from Australia and the peanuts 12,000km by sea from brazil. For a full field to pedal analysis you need to factor in the CO2e involved in growing and transporting the food not just the energy in the sandwich vs the energy in the battery. It’s about which form of energy has the lowest CO2e and it turns out you can use more green electricity than environmentally costly food and still be ahead environmentally. The EV doesn’t need to be more efficient to win when the CO2e of the food is higher (in my example cheeseburgers).
” for a modern EV with usage amortised over 5 passengers”
Yeah right. What EV has 5 passengers ever, let alone on average? We’ve had a car occupancy in the 1.1-1.3 range for peak traffic private cars for the last couple decades.
Lying with statistics. If I select my assumptions right, I can “prove” that flying to work is more environmentally friendly than walking.
Excessive car use is a problem in society, because whatever car you use, you are spending a lot more energy moving a massive per-person weight (electric cars are heavier than IC cars, by the way) and because it uses up space on our transport network so inefficiently we have to asphalt large swathes of our land. That’s not even talking about how it encourages sprawl and all the issues with that.
I drive a car to work these days (when I go to the office, which is not regular), so I’m not innocent of creating such negative impacts. But I don’t need to make up fake arguments about how everything I do is hunky Dory, if I just cajoled several of my neighbours onto my passenger seats and rear seats every morning.
Plus I can shotgun a hole into your assumptions by simply using my electric bike. See, my food calories use for cycling just went down, and I am still using a mere single digit fraction percentage of the electricity and embedded carbon emissions of your Tesla.
“Plus I can shotgun a hole into your assumptions by simply using my electric bike”
No you can’t. If you look above I’ve already stated 5x eBikes beat 5 people in an EV. Not by as much as you’d think, but they do. The specific comparison is 5x traditional cyclists fuelled by cheeseburgers vs 5x people in an EV.
Also for example 5 vegan cyclists come out better than 5 vegans in an EV.
The interesting result is not that one mode is radically better as some might have you believe, but that they are the same order of magnitude.
“Yeah right. What EV has 5 passengers ever, let alone on average? We’ve had a car occupancy in the 1.1-1.3 range for peak traffic private cars for the last couple decades.”
And we have an 8 people average per bus (some are packed full and some are even more empty), which makes them strictly worse as a general solution than the same number of people packed into EVs. They only win when they’re nearly full. Given decades of failure to increase bus ridership I guess we shouldn’t plan to increase the load factors in buses or trains either and should advocate for their disestablishment in favour of the more environmentally friendly options? On average they barely even compete with ICE vehicles environmentally per passenger km, let alone EVs. Increasing vehicle occupancy may still involve smaller shared vehicles. If you stay mired in the failures of the past you’re really not going to fix things in the future. And the comparison isn’t about whataboutisim. It’s a specific comparison of 5 cheeseburger eating cyclists to 5 people in an EV.
“you are spending a lot more energy moving a massive per-person weight”
Take your typical 100kg kiwi and bike combination (yes many kiwis are obese pushing up that average), that’s 500kg of mass you’re moving on bikes. Also they have much less efficient ‘engines’ per unit of energy supplied. Now put that same number of people in a smaller town and around EV, lets call that 2000kg total. It’s a difference but only a 4x one, hardly ‘Massive’ when you consider you’re also moving kilograms of food thousands of km to fuel the cyclists and need to calculate that in.
So when you use a form of energy that has a substantially lower CO2e than cheeseburgers you can deal with moving that 4x mass difference and still come out ahead.
“if I just cajoled several of my neighbours onto my passenger seats and rear seats every morning.”
You’re assuming only use of your private car, not shared electronically dispatched vehicles or rightsized point to pointpeople movers instead of buses. If you want to increase usage and occupancy more dynamic technology based solutions are needed. So are substantial carrots for those pooling, We’re not simply talking about old school carpools. As noted autonomous vehicles also total change up what will be possible. But regardless I’m commenting on the CO2e of 5 people in an EV vs 5 cheeseburger eating cyclists per km travelled. Different scenarios may produce different outcomes. But even then if you’re expecting to come up with ‘Massive’ differences you’ll probably be disappointed.
“Lol. I don’t have to hate cheeseburgers to accept that two a day might be unhealthy and boring”
We’ve also established that Peanut Butter Sandwiches and Oat Milk are also quite bad environmentally as a fuel given Auckland’s distance from where they are typically produced. Asparagus would be too. As would much imported food, especially those items air freighted for freshness.
“Plus I can shotgun a hole into your assumptions by simply using my electric bike. See, my food calories use for cycling just went down, and I am still using a mere single digit fraction percentage of the electricity and embedded carbon emissions of your Tesla.”
When you count lifetime CO2e, the fact that e-bikes last substantially less kms than EVs and that we’re talking 5x passengers in one EV and 5x e-bikers on 5x e-bikes then the 5 e-bikers are generating about 70% the CO2e of an EV. A win to the e-bikes to be sure but not nearly by as much as you seem to think. And before you say well what about one person in the EV vs one person on an e-bike. Well clearly the e-bike comes out at about 14% of the EV’s CO2e per km. But that’s not the comparison I made.
“Plus I can shotgun a hole into your assumptions by simply using my electric bike”
My assumptions are 5 cheeseburger eating traditional cyclists and one EV. What you mean is by changing the assumptions and making a different comparison you can come up with a different result?
That’s not actually shotgunning a hole in the assumptions as the assumptions are preconditions to, not an outcome of the analysis.
I’ve already stated elsewhere 5x e-bikes are superior to 5x cheeseburger eating cyclists or pretty much any normal cyclists and also EVs. You equally well may say what about a fully loaded electric train vs ~250 e-bikes. which wins? Or one person in an electric train or bus vs an e-bike or an EV? Then which wins? All interesting questions but not the one being discussed.
can we stop feeding the troll please?
“can we stop feeding the troll please?”
Zero extra energy used for exercise? Who’s the troll? You can’t really believe that unless you’re a science denier. So which are you, science denier or troll?
It’s very hard to resist feeding the troll isn’t it?
“The study reports that above a moderate level of physical activity, the total amount of energy consumed in one day by the body tends to level off—that means you don’t burn more calories, even if you increase your physical activity.”
https://magazine.scienceconnected.org/2021/03/more-exercise-doesnt-always-burn-more-calories/#:~:text=The%20study%20reports%20that%20above,you%20increase%20your%20physical%20activity.
“Pontzer’s study was preliminary and imperfect. It involved only 30 participants from one small community.
But it raised a tantalizing question: How could the active cyclist possibly burn the same amount of energy as indolent EV driver?”
https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-exercise-myth-burn-calories
Here’s a more nuanced analysis from the author based on their later work with elite athletes.
They contend more exercise results in increasing energy expenditure although perhaps at a lesser amount than a linear model might predict and if your body isn’t ingesting enough calories to sustain the required output you compensate by shutting down other physical processes and that’s where the ‘missing’ energy comes from. They also state the amount of shutdown of other processes primarily depends on the size of the calorie deficit (basically how much extra fuel you’re providing) and that after point you have no choice but to provide more fuel.
To quote:
“Our main conclusions are as follows: A) Higher activity levels, as observed in endurance athletes, may indeed increase total energy expenditure, albeit to a lesser degree than may be predicted by an additive model, given that some compensation is likely to occur; B) That while a range of factors may combine to constrain sustained high activity levels, the ability to ingest, digest, absorb and deliver sufficient calories from food to the working muscle is likely the primary determinant in most situations and C) That energetic compensation that occurs in the face of high activity expenditure may be primarily driven by low energy availability i.e., the amount of energy available for all biological processes after the demands of exercise have been met, and not by activity expenditure per se.”
https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1095643323001332-ga1_lrg.jpg demonstrates the relationship graphically with some additional commentary.
Thanks for baking up my point with some actual research.
We’re not talking about ultra-endurance athletes. As your link shows, there is no increase in energy expenditure as activity levels increase in Zone 2. Zone 2 covering moderate to high activity levels which would include biking 5-10 km to work or popping down the shops for some milk.
I think the fitter you get the less you’re gonna burn as your body machine is working more efficiently.
Google is your friend here. I suggest you expand your research beyond this one author.
Totally agree with you on that, you’re fixated on one result that doesn’t match the mainstream research in the area. Even the author over the years has moderated their claims more towards the more expected result. The result that when running from a leopard your body will shut down less useful functions for a period of time and defer maintenance activities in lean times if it doesn’t have energy to fund both periodically running from leopards and repairing itself is reasonable one.
But think of it another way. If this were absolutley true that all extra caloric expenditure was “free”, you wouldn’t be able to claim any weight loss benefits from cycling or any other exercise and all sports nutritionists would be frauds. Is that really a position you’re taking?
Just because cycling doesn’t turn out to be as environmentally efficient as you maybe thought it was compared to shared EVs doesn’t negate other benefits of it from a health perspective. But as previously noted those are separate arguments. Arguably all recreational exercise is worse for the environment than not exercising for the same reason that e-bikes are strictly better for the environment than pedalling yourself.
Or just bring back cash payment, which is actually freedom from all this corporate bs
Removing cash payments actually made bus trips more efficient. No longer does every passenger have to queue up to pay the bus driver, we can quickly tag on instead. And because buses don’t carry cash, buses & bus drivers are less a target for thieves. So no, let’s not bring cash payments back.
It’s a whole other discussion but I would like to see free public transport.
Yeah, I don’t think you quite understand what is happening globally, no offense meant, just sayin
We had about 95% hop cars usage already, every passenger wasn’t lining up to pay cash, only one or two at most did.
“I think the fitter you get the less you’re gonna burn as your body machine is working more efficiently.”
Sure, but kiwis are the forth worst in the OECD for obesity with only 30% of adults being a healthy weight and the rest being overweight and obese. So if cycling was broadly adopted the vast majority are going to be huffing and puffing along using significantly more calories to move their larger body mass. Now if you say “well they’ll lose weight over time due to exercise” you’re basing your current argument on a premise that all that cycling will cause them to require no more calories for the extra output so no weight loss will happen assuming a constant amount of food consumed over time. Personally I think they will lose weight but that is only consistent with cycling causing them to burn extra calories compared to their current baseline.
“Zone 2. Zone 2 covering moderate to high activity levels which would include biking 5-10 km to work or popping down the shops for some milk.”
Per above most people would actually probably fall into the sedentary group, so need to go up that linear ramp of increased calorie consumption first. You can clearly see the active group burn more calories than the sedentary ones and the extremely active ones burn even more.
Also bear in mind this is one paper from a researcher who initially claimed in earlier papers no extra expenditure between sedentary and highly active people (Basically asserting that the curve was flat) and is slowly over a series of about 4 papers walking that position back towards the more mainstream result. So take that with a grain of salt.
How timely, this just happened to me this morning.
I was told it had expired as it was 10 years old.
From memory, I got it free showing my old Snapper Hop card that NZ Bus had before AT Hop
I just checked the AT website. The only mention of expiring HOP cards is if they have not been used for six years. I logged on to check my own card, and there was no indication of an expiry date. So is there any way to find out?
Yep, same thing happened to me. Initially thought it was still system issues due to the hack but the bus driver asked me what I’d done to my card. It had happened to a friend a week prior so I had my suspicions. I also transferred buses near a service centre but because the systems were still recovering from the hack they couldn’t do anything for me that day and I had to hope the next bus driver would also just let me on. I’m also lucky I’m walking distance to a service centre and could sort it the following week but two weeks later my balance transfer is still pending.
Same here … almost a month and still waiting for the balance transfer, granted it did happen the day before / of the hack, but still, most frustrating!
A number of years back they owed me 1cent after being charged for using the free bus that is running while Mt Eden is closed and the number of emails that got no replies , in the end I had to get a gold card and they transfered my balance right away minus the 1cent and then I had had a go with the paper work I had printed off showing what had happened with the overcharge and within 48hrs the money was there on my card .
I find if you talk to a face things happen a lot faster than their call centres or even sending Emails .
And Matt L have a look at trade me your card could end up there as a collectable ? .
This happened to me a few weeks ago, it was at Britomart station and the staff there had no idea why. By the time I had tried my card about 10 times, the station assistant tried my card 10 times, and I had bought a paper ticket – I had missed my train.
The following morning when I went to enquire as to why my card wasn’t working, I was stood in line with 4 other people who were enquiring about exactly the same thing. By this stage the staff seemed to know what was going on though so got sorted fairly quickly.
It’s a bit rubbish that there was no communication of this to affected users as surely it would be easy to identify whose cards are expiring. And then to not have consistent knowledge across AT staff made it a sub-optimal experience. I was just lucky that I pass through Britomart station so could get a new card quickly without going too far out of my way.
Absolutely diabolical that
1) HOP cards expire for not obvious reason
2) That there is no pro-active notification to affected customers that their cards are about to expire
3) That there is no way for a customer to identify if their card is about to expire.
You couldn’t design a worse user experience.
Interesting story. But no strange to me. NZ people always say they are the best in the world, but they never know NZ is the most outdated country include the mind set of their people. Every day think they are the best, so there’s nothing to improve, nothing better!
Shall you has the chance to live in other countries, you will know my words!
God bless!
Melbournes Myki cards expire for some weird reason too. No idea why it’s necessary.
Particularly irksome considering that plastic is a fossil fueled product, so an expired card means justification for ignoring the fact that at some point the entire industry needs to be addressed.
And expiring after a decade seems a bit odd, perhaps it was due to their recent IT meltdown?
Their customer service people are well trained to be helpful but their PR department is definitely spin central!
Please don’t cancel mine AT.
Re-“While it certainly wasn’t the worse experience I’ve had with using public transport in Auckland, there are some areas for improvement that AT need to make, especially if this is about to significant issue.” especially,”I feel that I was lucky that the bus driver just let me on. What happens if one doesn’t,”…
Exactly! I saw such a driver in action recently. 2 women -1 a senior citizen, who happened to dressed traditionally, plus a child and younger woman. The senior woman boarded first but the younger woman had the hop card in her hand to swipe for the 3 of them. Before she could do this the bus driver yelled abusively at the senior woman accusing her of non- payment! I contrast this with the behavior of the bus driver who let you on even though your card malfunctioned.
NO APOLOGY was forthcoming to the women from the driver. I was disgusted by his behavior – and I felt intimidated as a passenger. I identify the driver’s behavior as both racist and sexist; His ethnicity was Pacific; but as far as I am concerned it was an embarrassment to the AT customer service team. Would anyone consider this a reason to make a customer complaint?
Sadly it is not the first time I have seen specifically senior pacific ethnicity men in positions of authority as AT bus drivers behave like this, and it is more often towards ‘vulnerable’ passengers, and in many more instances than I have seen people of other nationalities in similar positions behave like this, so I don’t discount a possibility that this may be a ‘cultural’ issue? I’m just describing here what I have seen.
It is a long time ago, but also I saw this culture of ‘anger and resentment’ amongst Pakeha older men in similar circumstances behave like this when using essential services in Auckland. I was the major reason why I, and others avoided using public transport at that time. Not so much recently though because I suspect that their peers and employers reigned them in, due to the influence of public education campaigns in NZ, about gender and racial violence.
It would be great if people of influence would be empowered to call this behavior out. “Culture” is not an excuse for behaving like this when given a position requiring a modicum of social responsibility in public life. The driver should have at least apologized to the women. Because he did not, his behavior escalated from making a “mistake” to racist, and sexist bullying.
Its not acceptable especially when people behave like this when employed in essential customer service roles. AT need to deal with this matter openly and with urgency, especially when technical issues affects the way service recipients’ personal integrity can be perceived.
Fulfilling customer service roles can be stressful, but the people employed in these roles are supposed to be professionally qualified to do the job. Such behavior, while it may be seen as a ‘fact of life’ when coming from individuals in the public sphere, is absolutely not acceptable when it comes from service and administration staff employed in professional customer service roles.
AT produces training videos to support bus operators to bake in good culture, understanding and helpfulness among PT drivers, train and ferry crews. We all know that passenger experience is not always good – sometimes a driver gets ‘overheated’ with the stress of the job, but need to be helped to learn how to deal with that.
A ‘customer complaint’ is probably the best way to get feedback to the operator’s management and down to helping the driver to learn better behaviour. “Thank you, driver” is always a positive, even if it might be sarcastic sometimes.
It is a pity that aroha seems to be replaced with anger lately.
Why I am reluctant to complain to AT if I experience a bad incident , or poor service provision when traveling on AT buses.
Re ” sometimes a driver gets ‘overheated’ with the stress of the job, but need to be helped to learn how to deal with that.”
Yes I agree with that, but it is not the passenger’s job to ‘help’ the driver to do that for AT. If they [AT] are serious about fulfilling their service provision and employment roles, passengers need to see them do better at supporting their drivers to deal with their emotional aggression under stress, and AT needs to stop responding to complaints by try to weasel out with lame excuses, and transferring blame on to passengers.
However I acknowledge that the problem is far from simple to deal with and will need expert investigation to resolve.
From what I have seen, the majority of drivers are not aggressive, but, the public should be given some assurance that there are consequences faced by drivers who are aggressive towards passengers, particularly when a passenger lays a complaint.
It is not being ‘disloyal’ to AT’s front-line workforce call out personnel aggression towards service users when it happens, condemn it, and apologize to the victim. AT buses have security cameras on board so sorting out these issues should be simpler than in the past. If a passenger is aggressive to a driver it should be easy to prove, if the incident was unprovoked, then Police should be involved, and if the passenger was responding to unfair treatment, support to lay a complaint should be immediately given to the passenger. Complaint forms could be provided on the spot. If the incident is serious enough for police involvement all should be interviewed. Drivers should also be able to call an AT authority to deal with the matter.
Drivers need more protection.
AT service recipients should be supported by access to a complaints investigation process which is service user focused, and importantly complainants deserve to be respected by AT, enough to be given support at the time of an incident, and timely, meaningful feedback on the matters involving individual complaints.
I’ve actually experienced incidents and not felt able to face contacting AT ‘complaints’ administration. I felt like I was working with a hostile administration ‘tread mill’.
From what I have heard, a fear of experiencing aggression and poor service delivery is a major component which is influencing many Aucklanders’ decisions to only use buses as a transport option of ‘last resort’, or for an occasional ‘entertainment’ purpose.
It would help if other people ‘out there’ who have been poorly treated by Auckland public transport services, spoke up if they have also experienced similar dissatisfaction with AT’s complaints procedures. Passenger’s voices are not directly heard much in the discussions about Auckland’s public transport options. I believe that the way some AT staff behave towards passengers is a major barrier to encouraging more Aucklanders to use Auckland’s PT services regularly, even if the majority of drivers do a good job. As a passenger it is like waiting for the next ‘got-ya’, which is a horrible feeling.
I think inside looking out’s advice is good, Jayne. All we can do is give feedback officially, try to help in the moment with a king word to whoever needs it (and blog when something is systemic). Generalisations about age, sex or race really don’t help, and just aren’t accurate either. It was a female pakeha driver on InterCity who was the most recent example of poor behaviour that I witnessed, for example.
AT does try to have systems in place, and feedback can help to improve them.
Relating to this, I recently had mixed experience with public transport on a family holiday, flying from Auckland to Wellington and returning by train. We had planned to go to the airport via the Southern line and then bus from Puhinui, but it turned out on that weekend there were no trains south of Otahuhu (not the first occurence for me…). So the alternative was Onehunga line, and then 380 bus, which we were happy to do, even if 15-20 minutes longer/less convenient. We were obviously not the only ones – at the Onehunga bus stop, there must have been 12-15 people lined up with bags clearly going to the airport. I was at the front of the queue with arms full of bags and a child. When the bus came around the corner, I thought I saw the driver looking our way and moved to the kerbside, admittedly without clearly signalling, but I thought the line of people with bags might be obvious. The bus shot past by about a bus length before stopping. We were then told off for not signalling for the bus. And each group behind us was also berated for not signalling. In Mangere, someone had a question for the driver but was gruffly turned away. Maybe he was having a bad day or had recent bad experience, but again, it wasn’t a good look from the City’s point of view, especially considering some people on the bus were clearly tourists. On a brighter note, every bus driver in Wellington was friendly, and the local train crew at our Papakura transfer on return were lovely, holding a departing train when they saw us coming down the stairs, even when my 3 year old dropped a pile of spoons that she had to be carrying!
Replying to Heidi- yes I agree that timely reassurance is a good approach to these issues, but I disagree about what you term as “generalizations” being invalid in the context of this matter.
For example, it is common for researchers of human behavior to state that “men are more likely to be perpetrators in instances of domestic violence”. This is accepted as scientific fact, and not to be confused with making a ‘negative’ generalization against ALL men.
ALL bus drivers are not abusive, but it may be a victims’ experience that the majority of bus drivers who were abusive were actually middle aged white men’. The word is being used descriptively, not necessarily as a verb.
This could be identified as making a negative “generalization’, but it does not mean that this reality is not also ‘true”. Last time I looked in the dictionary, the words “negative” and “generalization” were not combined in one word.
The dictionary meaning of “generalizing” ie to make a general or broad statement by inferring from specific cases. This meaning of the word “generalization” does not exclude individual exceptions even if these are a sizable proportion of the specified group being referred to, and describing the situation like this , while it is a “generalization” is not a valid reason to imply that the statement is untrue, or invalidate the point being made in the argument.
There’s something problematic going on in the backend. HOP cards are only really meant to expire if they’ve been unused for six years. They should not be expiring at random. I wonder if this is related to the hack?
My original Gold Hop Card had a 5 year expiry date on it , but the next one I got after the 1st was stolen didn’t .
And here is the full Announcement of the new national ticketing system ;-
10 years might not have become a problem if NZ transport authorities had worked together sooner. The National Ticketing System should sort things, but can’t be rushed. One year from procurement to Christchurch getting ready to launch it is not too bad.
I wonder if AT could get the system to ignore expiry dates, if not just add 5 years to existing cards?
Yes, seems to be an assumption they won’t be working that well after a while like bank cards expire (maybe the card manufacturer setting). I think most of ours have been lost or broken before this 10 years comes around. I am still using my original one, not sure when we first had them though it was around about when HOP was fully rolled out (March 2014) & we just had the first electric trains to Onehunga (April 2014).
Its not only Hop that expires. A couple of weeks ago I asked at an AT desk in
Britomart if I could have a timetable for the southern line, as mine was out of date.
I got a brisk answer : ” We don’t print them anymore – you will find all the info
online”.
Has anyone heard about this, or was it me who missed it ?
What do those who are not online do ?
Some of the Staff think a Timetable is State Secret and don’t to get up and have a look out the back .
But then again with all the Station name changes perhaps AT wants the local Iwi to pay for the Changes .
“What do those who are not online do ?”
94% of the population have Internet access and 92% have a smartphone and the rest can toddle down to the nearest library and print one out if they are still even public transport users or get the nice rest home nurse to print one out. But also to keep up with all the delays and cancellations it is not really practical to be a public transport user without a smartphone or Internet access.
I do have internet access, but not a smartphone. A timetable is
much easier for a 76 year old with autism.
Toddle? It is apatronising word to use for those whose circumstances are different from your own.
“But also to keep up with all the delays and cancellations it is not really practical to be a public transport user without a smartphone or Internet access”
This indicates system failure. Sound transport system design enables people without internet or smart phone access – whether long term or a temporary glitch – to navigate seamlessly.
“Sound transport system design enables people without internet or smart phone access – whether long term or a temporary glitch – to navigate seamlessly.”
Even an idealised system will have cancellations and delays. Maybe not to the embarrassing level AT does, but they will be there nonetheless. I guess it’s up to you if you’d rather know in real time or before you set out that your bus isn’t coming, your ferry has been cancelled, your train is running late and your trip now has no purpose since you’re going to miss your appointment. Having to find that out experimentally by starting your journey and seeing where it all falls apart based on a dated paper document is the other option.
It’s hard to navigate most of modern life without internet access. Given the current penetration and the fact that free publicly available options exist it is no longer reasonable to assume any significant number of people don’t have internet access or someone who can access it on their behalf.
Had a guy get on my bus a couple of weeks ago and his card didn’t work – not unusual these days and I’m not particularly interested, if I think someone’s taking the piss I’ll do the unpaid fare thing (on the ticket machine to flag that stop for AT) but normally I just smile and wave. He seemed genuinely surprised and I had time to spare so we had a look on his card to see what it was complaining about – “card expired”.
First time either of us had ever heard about hop cards expiring !
Thinking back to the UK in London the Oyster card you effectively own (£5) and the balance gets loaded onto it instantly. If you card gets damaged you can exchange it and again balance is transferred instantly. If you lose it you buy a new one and then get the balance transferred.
None of this time delay faffing nonsense from AT.
And the oyster card are yours for life, no expiry or stealing your balance if you haven’t used it for a few years.
Yes, it’s really unfair and annoying. If you don’t tag or load more money for a period (doesn’t seem to specify on the website), the card gets cancelled. I have 4 or 5 cards between me and my kids that have been cancelled with credit on them. Their cards had been under my account but when they went to uni they had to get their own in order to get student discount. My other cards became redundant when i got a new gold card. I didn’t realise you could recover the money. I bet they have made a heap of money from people who have had their cards cancelled, especially people who haven’t registered them and have lost track of the balance. Bee cards are a lot more user friendly and can be used in many parts of the country.
How strange, is it not stated that it expires ten years from issue anywhere in its terms?
Instead of taking your card away you should get a reward of some sort for having used it for that long.
I’d definitely be annoyed that there swiped a card like that – it’s a novelty and there won’t be too many around I imagine.
Glad I am in good company – happened to me three weeks ago. HOP reader on bus flashed red with a “cannot read card, buy a cash ticket” (that’s ironic eh!) message. Bus driver waved me on – possibly cos he’s a nice guy, but possibly cos I am male, white, middle aged and was on my way to a business meeting. Some of the comments from others above would suggest that this “come on board” treatment isn’t always the case… Couldn’t check balance, top up or buy a new one – as this was right in the middle of the security breach issue.
Tried again a few days later when security matter had been resolved, same result – another free ride (thank you driver) and then a walk down to Britomart. Very helpful lady sorted me out with a free new card and transferred balance but said this wouldn’t happen until 3-5 days. Luckily I had dug out a spare HOP card by this time. Big queue had formed behind me by the time we were done.
She said that HOP cards only last 10 years – I didn’t know that and from asking a few around AT Metro, they didn’t know that either…
There will be a lot more of this happening right now, so maybe time for AT to issue some comms on the matter and put in place a better process for getting a new card / balance transfer so as not to clog up the lines at all its CSC’s. Trouble is, I don’t think anyone knows how old HOP cards are and thus when this might happen to them…
It would be a lot easier if AT just adapted their system. It’s quite common to put an enddate in a field as that makes querying the data easier.
AT most likely hadn’t expected AT HOP to be around for that long though.
There’s another high likelihood that the programmer of the original system has left and nobody knows where to find this in the spaghetti of code.
It also poses an interesting legal question: as someone mentioned above, there’s nothing in the T&Cs that mentions the card expires after 10 years. That means AT could (and should) be forced to change this without any expense to the customer.
Yes looks like something really dodgy is going on- Re “Some of the comments from others above would suggest that this “come on board” treatment isn’t always the case… ” leaving ample room for shinagians from service personnel choosing to amuse themselves with going on a power trip at service recipients’ expense. Similar dynamics to some incidents I saw during lockdowns, which was arguably the nastiest part of going through that time. Even if you do follow the rules you get ‘played’, and that is at the dangerous heart of this matter.
Taking dissatisfaction with employment/political or social conditions out on passengers is bullying.
Service delivery personnel who abuse service recipients in that way are siding with management, which is a matter about the ‘dark’ side of ‘free’ public transport initiatives. The insidious part of this is that they will still plead ‘solidarity’ with ‘we the people’ if their behavior is called out. It has an influence on access to essential services way beyond those who are victimized, and really shuts down or at the very least reduces access to services, usually for the service recipients who most need to use that service.
I’m avoiding PT at the moment if I can. The thought of having to deal with the stress of another ‘gotya’ has put me right off. Begs the question – was this seen as an underhand way of relieving the burden of effective service delivery on by service providers and funders?
Any way you look at this it is a slimy trick, which has plausible deniability in that anyone who attempts to call it out for what it is can be labeled a ‘conspiracy theorist’ – which is tantamount to being called ‘mentally ill. –
In response to this matter, it shows that we certainly have some slime-balls working within public service. As a humorous take – any one remember that song by “Shaggy” called “It wasn’t Me” because, it doesn’t matter what you believe, that is how public transport services recipients are being shafted…. [LOL] Humor is the best antidote for this- keep smiling.
Probably something to do with the hack and all the disruption resulting from that.
It seems to have happened to several commenters long before the hack.
And even if that’s the case, why not communicate that with us, their customers.
A simple “We have become aware that… Rest assured that…” would already suffice.
It’s not rocket science.
I just had the expiry email this afternoon, what makes it funnier is that it says that my card expired on 11/09/2023, so it took them a month to send me this. They’re saying I can get a new card delivered by mail, which in my case is fine because I’ve only used it once in the last year (since I WFH now). I guess a regular commuter would’ve picked it up by now, but from the other stories on this thread it seems like it’s just happening out of the blue and causing issues with getting places, which is ridiculous.
I did get an invalid card message when I used the train a fortnight ago as I had to go into work as a one-off, but it was the same time as the hack was going on, so I assumed it had something to do with that, and I couldn’t get into my online Hop acc to check the balance. I had to go to the helpdesk at Britomart in order to get out, I can’t remember if he tried my card or not, but I got let out through the gate, and then I didn’t use the card to get home as I had a ride.
Such a poor way of going about this, but who can be surprised.
Ditto… they’ve obviously got the message and sent out emails in bulk – mine likewise informs me mine has expired a month ago. I usually cycle, so haven’t tried to use it, and they are now offering to post a new one out, so an improvement on some of the stories, but surely doing this before the cards actually expired would have been sensible… not sure what I’m supposed to do if I need to get public transport in the meantime (I don’t live or work anywhere near a service centre).
I got the email from AT this afternoon too, offering a free replacement to be posted for a card expiring mid Nov, if I confirm my postal address. Hadn’t read this blog post yet so at first thought it might be a scam email but I guess it is legit. At least they are on to it now but a pity for those who weren’t warned in time or anyone who never registered with a valid email address. I hope they have lots of Hop cards in stock, as I am guessing me getting my card might line up with when the Snapper cards were withdrawn from Auckland so there may be a whole lot expiring in a short period.
Recent comments about AT mailing replacements gives some hope, having to go to a service center is ridiculous. There’s ONE in all of West and North-west Auckland, at New Lynn, which is pretty out of the way if you don’t go there.
I was also in the original Pilot Group in October 2012, and today I received an email from AT informing me that my card expired on a month ago on 10-Sep (I haven’t used it in a while as I’m using a key tag which I got a few years ago). The email does have a link to “order a new card for free”, which AT will mail out.
In SE Qld the Translink Go Card (their equivalent of the AT Hop Card) expires 10 years from date of issue. But at least when you check your card online you see the Date Issued and when the card Expires.
Would be great if AT modified MyAT so that AT Hop Card expiry dates were shown when you log on, especially if a whole lot of cards issued in the weeks and months after the initial launch are about to expire.
As we are going to have a new system why don’t AT extend the Expiry Date say 3yrs until the new is online ? , without going through this hassle .
Or is that too had for the bunny experts at AT , or were they the ones made redundant .
This does seem the most ridiculous waste of plastic! Removing the expiry and replacing in a ‘as and when needed’ basis would be much better on both environmental and cost fronts…..
I don’t think its AT’s code to futz with,
HOP was a complete deal with Thales, and its looks like they are on contract to maintain it, ( the contract was due to expire in May 2024, but has been extended for 2 more year to cover the overlap of the new National ticketing system)
https://at.govt.nz/media/1992062/15-gts-support-and-maintenance-renewal-for-at-hop.pdf
My son just messaged me to say his Card wasn’t working. The bus driver said he needed to pay the cash fare. How can he do that if the card isn’t working?
Contacted AT Hop to find out his card expired yesterday. It’s OK you just have to take it to a Customer Service centre and they will replace it for you. How do you get to the place if your card doesn’t work? Is it really sown to us to sort this out?
For those who don’t like car, please immediately destroy your car, don’t sell it to others as the car still there!
Why so many brain watered people in NZ.
Lol. I don’t have to hate cheeseburgers to accept that two a day might be unhealthy and boring.
Sorry if that is too complex for your water-less brain. That made my day!