NZ Herald editorial: AT HOP cards should not expire

What sort of "smart card" is this? Photo / Jason Oxenham

Editorial

Auckland Transport's HOP card took years to design and put into operation. It was away back in 2009, before the creation of the Super City, when the city's transport officials gave an $87 million contract to the French conglomerate Thales to develop a transferable card for Auckland's buses, trains and ferries. It had already spent years refusing to use a simple debit card already operating on Wellington buses. Auckland, they said, needed something far more sophisticated that would enable them to monitor public transport more completely.

It took another three years for the smart card to appear, by which time the transport authority had been constituted as a stand alone agency under the Auckland Council. It's AT HOP card was launched with much fanfare and by this time last year nearly a million cards had been issued, about three times as many as expected. Clearly, cards were being bought by many more people than regularly commute by public transport. Many of those people may be surprised now to learn their payments expire if not used within two months.

What sort of "smart card" is this? AT want to assure the card holders they can call the agency and have their money re-instated, which seems ridiculous with today's technology.

AT lamely explains that when someone puts cash on their card, the card has to be tagged on for a ride before the amount is loaded on the card. This must be done within 60 days, otherwise the money just lies in AT's coffers until (unless) it is reclaimed. In the year to April, $342,000 worth of fares expired, some of which was re-activated for people who must have discovered their cards not working when they knew they were in credit.

But how many would not remember putting money on their card more than 60 days previously? Some card holders must be very occasional users of public transport, keeping a card just for emergencies. The system should be able to accommodate them.

The 60-day limit has been set so that the system does not get overloaded with cards waiting to have their balance updated. If the tagging machines on trains and buses had to search a larger database each time a card was presented, the tagging system would slow down, AT explains. It sounds very primitive by today's standards.

Do modern metropolitan transport cards overseas suffer this sort of limitation? As one frustrated HOP card holder told us yesterday, "I have transport cards for London, Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore and I can use these cards when I am in the country with no feat it won't work, even months or years later."

Database technology seems boundless today, and fast. Auckland ratepayers have staked a lot on the transfer card that is supposed to be the linchpin of an integrated public transport system. It is the key to the whole plan for people to catch buses to railways stations or ferry wharves and be prepared to change vehicles at least once in the course of their journey.

When possible users hear the card effectively has a 60-day expiry they are less likely to carry one, and the credibility of Auckland's public transport takes another blow. AT needs to tell its card supplier to do better.