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SmartCard fare structure not very smart
The Transport Minister must revise and improve the proposed fare structure for the SmartCards if he wants regular and occasional public transport users to use them.
Under the proposed fare structure, the first 6 trips each week will be charged at full price, with a 50 percent discount to apply to all other trips made within a week. Commuters who now purchase weekly paper tickets, and who make regular trips more than 10 times a week, will be financially disadvantaged if they convert to the new Smartcard system.
Some very frequent users changing from a weekly paper ticket would see their fares more than double.
Occasional bus and train commuters who now buy and use Ten-trip Savers will be similarly disadvantaged.
This is not the way to encourage public transport users to sign on to the SmartCard
system. Translink must offer financial incentives to encourage commuters to use PT services more regularly.
The proposed fare structure will discourage many commuters who for convenience and cost buy weekly tickets, by imposing higher charges on them if they buy a SmartCard.
How dumb is that?
The Minister says that paper tickets will continue to be available. CAST notes however that Translink expects that SmartCards will ultimately replace all paper tickets – apparently without providing comparable fares.
Holders of paper tickets avoid having to remember to swipe their SmartCards or face a penalty.
Translink must offer occasional users a Smartcard version with a similar discount to the Ten-trip Saver, with a six-month validity period.
There must be a weekly cap placed on SmartCard fares, so that the 11th and subsequent trips are free of charge.
Translink must devise and introduce innovative incentives to attract more people to use
public transport and to use it regularly.
If the Minister wants more people to use public transport, he must instruct Translink to modify the SmartCard fare structure to make it attractive to existing commuters, and to all those potential passengers who would leave their cars at home if public transport services and fares were an attractive alternative.
Contact David White 0403 871 082
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1 comment:
No matter what the fares are, the users of public transport are paying the same, partly in fares and partly in tax. Lower the fares, and more will have to be taken from taxes. (The taxes won't be lowered if the fares are raised.)
Presently only about 25% of public transport fares are covered by fares. Lets see, that would mean we pay 75% of it with taxes. So my $25.60 3-zone weekly ticket really costs about $100.
Won't those card swipe gates just slow people down enterring and leaving? They already do now, because only one person at a time can fit through each gate, so the person coming the other way has to wait for him; and the gates together take up about half the width of the entrance.
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