Last week I finally got to Wangaratta to try the bank card fare payment trial they’re running on local buses.
When it comes getting new and occasional users onto public transport more often, the most important thing is providing a reliable coherent connected network of frequent 7-day services.
But bank card fare payment isn’t too far behind.
On a system where single use tickets are not generally available (and from an environmental and cost point of view, it’s arguable that they should not be), being able to pay with a card (or phone) you already have in your pocket solves a lot of issues.
This trial started late last year, on local buses in Wangaratta.
The Wang trial
The four local routes (401, 402, 403, 404) are all in the trial, and the standard $3 fare ($6 daily cap) is being used, with only adult fares able to be charged as part of the trial.
Why Wangaratta? Probably because it’s a reasonable-sized town with several bus routes but it’s outside the V/Line Myki zones, and they wanted to test without V/Line fare integration.
The four routes converge on the centre of Wangaratta, terminating outside the museum. I took some quick rides and touched on three buses. There’s no touch off required.
(Fortunately I was there on a weekday, with all routes running every 30 minutes. It would be tricky on a weekend, when the timetables are very infrequent.)
The readers are the same as used in Adelaide, and are bright yellow, easy to spot at the front of the bus, and you touch below the screen. The response time seemed quick and a satisfying double beep sound was played, with a big green tick displayed.
All good.
So was the charging correct?
Initially a $1 authorisation appeared.
Two days later the $1 authorisation was still the only charge.
Eventually after three days, this disappeared and the correct $3 fare was charged.
So in summary: it worked as expected.
Coincidentally the same day I was in Wang, the ABC published this story… and a video version on social media, raising questions about the trial.
What’s being tested?
The concern is around what is actually being tested.
Some requirements for the ticketing system are included, but a lot are not.
Off the top of my head:
| Being tested in Wang | Not being tested |
|---|---|
| Bank card (and phone) payment Back-end fare calculation ($3 two hour fare, $6 daily cap) Transaction sent from buses to back-end system to banks | Myki cards Zones, presumably including location detection Distance-based fares (touch-off) Other modes including V/Line Concessions and free passes Travel history accessible by passengers Weekly caps Ticket inspections |
One source in the ABC story called the trial pointless.
I don’t think that’s quite right – it’s not quite the equivalent of just buying a Square card reader and mounting it in a bus – those wouldn’t be able to handle the 2-hour fares and daily cap.
But at the same time, it does look awfully like they’ve just installed the same card readers from Adelaide into the buses – with the same limitations – one fare type only, a single zone (flat fare), with no concessions.
PTV says:
We’re testing a few things, including installation of new readers, staff training and operations, use of tap and go payments and back-office and financial reconciliation processes.
What we learn will prepare us for future trials and the progressive rollout of new ticketing features.
I do hope they’re learning things from this trial, especially if – as has been claimed – not many people are using it. (I didn’t see anybody else use it on the buses I caught).
It’s only baby steps, while many other cities already have this mostly working.
Hopefully there’s further progress quickly… and we see upgrades in Melbourne and elsewhere in Victoria soon.
10 replies on “Wangaratta’s bus tap and go trial”
Pointless some say? They did a trial of Myki in regional areas, some about the same size as Wangaratta over a decade ago as far as I remember. I think the steps that the government are taking in this respect is actually reasonable (not pointless as some in the media are saying), especially as Wangaratta is not in the Myki, although I think all VLine services (including the long-distance services) were originally going to use Myki as well before the Liberals stopped it when they got in power in 2010, leaving users with paper (I remember heading to Ararat a couple of years ago and saw what would’ve been a Myki reader at Ararat station).
Sure, there was the regional trial of Myki Mark 1 in 2009, but that made sense because (for better or worse) it was a brand new system.
This time it looks suspiciously like they’ve just installed a mini system identical to the one already running in Adelaide, and will run it for six months.
This is what has me (and others) wondering about how much they’ll learn. Meanwhile we wait for more substantial upgrades (or at least some signs that they’re coming).
It doesn’t surprise me that few people are using contactless payments in Wangaratta, simply because the trial is for full fare tickets only, and the vast majority of people catching a local town bus in that kind of place would be captive users, few of whom wouldn’t be eligible for some kind of concession.
Taking three days for the correct fare to appear is pretty poor. Surely it should take an authorisation for the correct fare, and finalise it at the end of the day.
There is no real comparison between this trial and the Myki trial which began in Geelong in late 2007. The Geelong bus system is far larger than that in Wangaratta, which made the Geelong trial a genuine one. The Wangaratta “trial” seems to be a case of making it seem that something is happening, after a delay of over a year. They have merely installed the existing Adelaide system on a few buses, without it being adapted in any way to the Victorian ticketing set-up.
If you are wondering, Australasian Bus & Coach has an article on the Myki trials in Wangaratta for those who are interested. https://www.busnews.com.au/inside-mykis-six-month-tap-and-go-trial-on-wangaratta-buses/
What I don’t understand is that the readers are able to read a NFC chip aka the Android Myki which in theory is just a bank card or card masked as a Myki. Why do we have to spend so much money in “upgrading the readers” yes some are the older ones on trams that are so slow it’s not funny and people try and tap on as they enter instead of walking down and then tapping on so trams are always delayed due to this. But all current readers can accept NFC taps just like the Myki card itself is NFC so why can’t they just enable the bank card function just like Sydney and London did without needing to replace the readers. They just enabled the function for billing it. Can someone explain?
@Andy M, I agree with you, but I believe that it is the new contract that requires the old technology to be removed. And with the fact that it will only be full fare, it is a standard thing as other cities had full fare only initially (like Sydney for example when credit cards were able to be used alongside the Opal cards). Just hope that the same thing doesn’t happen like last year when the Vix readers stopped working (caused by the shutdown of the 3G network).
An update on my previous post. The new system is also being rolled out in South East Queensland with the new system now online in Logan, with Transport for Brisbane buses and Kinetic (Gold Coast) to go online soon. It has taken a while for the system to be rolled out in South East Queensland, which proves that systems such as what is going on in Brisbane (and soon here in Melbourne) will take time to roll out. So the phased introduction of technology such as paying by credit cards is not going to be all at once, like every other compariable city in Australia (such as Sydney and Brisbane).
If you are interested in reading more on the introduction in the Logan City Council area of the new ticketing system, you can read about it on Australasian Bus & Coach at https://www.busnews.com.au/smart-ticketing-now-available-in-logan/
Talking of Wanagaratta I am trying to locate Michelle who was married to Raymond Bowen who had a bakery in the town. I do not know Michelle’s surname now because they got divorced. But if you do know Michelle tell her to send me an email Raymond Conder – [email protected] thank you.