Auckland Hits 250,000 Contactless Trips On Public Transport

Since new ways to pay were launched on Auckland’s public transport network on 17 November there have been more than 250,000 trips where people have used their credit card, debit card, smartphone or smart watch to tag on, Auckland Transport says.

Desley Simpson, Deputy Mayor of Auckland says: “Auckland is proud to lead the way as the first city in New Zealand to deliver a fully integrated contactless payment system across buses, trains and ferries.

“This has proved to be successful as in less than 3 weeks we have exceeded 250,000 trips using the HOP card alternative with no technical issues,” Cr Simpson said.

Auckland Transport Chief Executive Dean Kimpton says it’s been great to see Aucklanders and visitors making the most of new ways to pay, especially on buses and ferries.

“We’re really pleased with how many people have been trying new ways to pay for public transport, including people who aren’t regular public transport users,” Mr Kimpton said.

"So far we're seeing the most demand from people using contactless payments on the weekend, and using our train and ferry services."

The smooth roll-out of contactless payments was thanks to more than 18 months of careful planning, testing and hard work from AT’s public transport, technology and customer service teams and our AT HOP partner Hitachi Rail GTS, Mr Kimpton says.

“Introducing new ways to pay across Auckland’s public transport network at once was a big technical undertaking and it was great we were able to deliver such a smooth experience for our customers from day one.”

Hitachi Rail GTS General Manager Denise Burns says the roll-out had its challenges because it covered buses, trains and ferries all at once.

“We had both hardware and software releases planned in stages to allow us to update the technology in the background without causing issues for public transport customers.

“We started installing the first new ‘validators’ that people use for tagging off and on back in April while we continued to make the software changes needed for us to go live in November.

“There was a huge amount of planning needed to make sure the go-live was as seamless as possible because of the unique challenge of making changes to buses, trains and ferries,” she said.

© Scoop Media