Sydney Buses green ticket boxes

[Whales]

Hey everyone & Dave,

Those living down under the depths of Sydney know the state transport authority is slowly pushing everyone onto their 'smartcard' ticket system called Opal.  Along with this change it's likely they will discard the old ticket vending machines (large, bulky, standalone units) at train stations and also the traditional green ticket boxes used on buses:



The stories have it that these machines have lasted much longer than they were initially designed to.  I'm not grey enough to know, but apparently it's been decades.  The last attempt of a 'smart ticket' system flopped whilst these infallible soldiers just kept on whirring, purring, and playing songs at passengers with suspect cardboard.

It's likely they would have an enticing array of tech in them, including:

• Dot-matrix ticket printing
• Various mechanics and motors for the ticket feeding and 'eating' functions (confiscation)
• Magnetic stripe read/write heads
• Tone synth paraphernalia
• At least one VFD.

... not to mention the fact they would either be filled with interesting repairs, or are made of such fantastic gold brilliance that they still contain the original sample of atmosphere sealed in them from manufacture.  Just imagine the smell....

Dave, you are a very motivated guy.  For the shutdown of a broadcasting station you basically waltzed in and said Hi! to a confused contractor, entertained a tour, and waltzed out with racks of equipment in your hands.  Do you think it's worth asking the STA what they are going to be doing with the green ticket boxes?

[mswhin63]

Really quite a surprising machine, looks totally primitive.

WA has been using Smartcards for quite a while and I have one as well, no need to insert a ticket, made from credit card material and uses RFID to tag on and tag off.

I would have thought Sydney would have a much better system than ours. Quite surprised really that maybe our public transport system is not bad.

[David_AVD]

I too am surprised that Sydney transport doesn't have a totally contact-less card system by now.

[EEVblog]

You can buy the buses:
http://www.statetransit.info/bus-fleet/buses-for-sale

[Whales]

I too am surprised that Sydney transport doesn't have a totally contact-less card system by now.

Our last attempt ended in legal hell ->  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tcard

It's going to be a pain for pensioners who don't have family to set a card up for them.  Apart from that my only complaint is privacy -- just because lots of places in the world are doing it does not make this any better.

You can buy the buses:
http://www.statetransit.info/bus-fleet/buses-for-sale

Years ago I attended a school camp that used a bus purchased off the state.  It's main problem was the air suspension: once you started the bus you had to get off and wait several minutes.  At a random time the left side's suspension would suddenly inflate and the bus would leap into the air.  From there it worked fine 

Really quite a surprising machine, looks totally primitive.

The small handful of times a year they break down, passengers rejoice!  Free rides

[mswhin63]

Yeah, the old buses in WA go for a steal. I was considering buying one as a permanent home until caravan parks stopped taking on permanent residence.

I was really looking forward to this. Instead I have to consider building a trike instead 

[Whales]

Really quite a surprising machine, looks totally primitive.

I should mention that the ticket readers are integrated into the receipt printer in interesting ways.  I've seen drivers dip cards to (I think) initialise or setup certain things for the bus payment system, and at other times dip pensioner cards they are selling (perhaps to write data to their strips).

[mswhin63]

Really quite a surprising machine, looks totally primitive.

I should mention that the ticket readers are integrated into the receipt printer in interesting ways.  I've seen drivers dip cards to (I think) initialise or setup certain things for the bus payment system, and at other times dip pensioner cards they are selling (perhaps to write data to their strips).

Looking at the wiki link above for the TCard, I looked at the extra link for Opal and they are not at all like the green machine. The Opal system looks very similar to what we use now.

[Whales]

Looking at the wiki link above for the TCard, I looked at the extra link for Opal and they are not at all like the green machine. The Opal system looks very similar to what we use now.

Apologies for the confusion:

• Current ticket system with green boxes: has no name
• Failed attempt to replace it: T-cards
• Current attempt to replace it: Opal

[David_AVD]

Overall the Translink system up here (SE QLD) seems good.  My son goes to uni and finds it convenient.

You have a choice to register the card (so you have some control if it gets lost) or leave it anonymous.

I believe you can hop on and off any combination of trains & buses (and some ferries too i think) in a journey and it's all counted as one trip over a fairly wide area.

Unfortunately you need a separate card for each person traveling, which must be a pain for families that don't use public transport a lot.

[vk6zgo]

Really quite a surprising machine, looks totally primitive.

WA has been using Smartcards for quite a while and I have one as well, no need to insert a ticket, made from credit card material and uses RFID to tag on and tag off.

I would have thought Sydney would have a much better system than ours. Quite surprised really that maybe our public transport system is not bad.

Sydney has always lagged a bit with their buses,though their trains used to be good.

The WA Smartcards are printed as the obverse of the WA Seniors card.
Seniors can travel free on weekends & between peak hours,so it's a pretty good deal for Old Farts like me.

[SeanB]

 Here in ZA public transport consists of municipal buses ( they supposedly do run, but you rarely see them with passengers in them other than at peak period), State owned bus operators, private buses and the mess that is called a minibus taxi, or death on wheels. Most is cash, and the local garage does a lot of taxi fuel, so he has a few coin counters to handle the money, and keeps a lot of change that goes to the bank with SBV. Municipal buses are moving to a card system, to reduce the amount of cash drivers handle ( they often get robbed) and the taxis are being "encouraged" to use the cards as well.

Then again I can travel anywhere in the city for a flat fare in the CBD and surrounding suburbs, R5 (50c US) is the fare. Walk out the door, stick up a finger and by magic a minibus will materialise right in front of you.  Get in, give the conductor money and get off at your destination. To use a bus you go to the stop and wait for one, it will be there sometime.....

[Len]

You can buy the buses:
http://www.statetransit.info/bus-fleet/buses-for-sale

Perfect! You can buy a bus, do a teardown of the green box, and then fit the bus out as an RV / mobile lab. Then you can go walkabout (with the family) doing teardowns and hacking demonstrations all over the country. It'll be fun!

[m12lrpv]

The green machines will be sitting in the buses for quite a while so don't expect to be able to get your hands on one anytime soon.

I personally have plenty of gripes with the way the Opal rollout is happening. Cutting the sale of pensioner paper tickets on the buses without having a direct replacement was criminal. Now your 90yr old grandmother has to walk 1km to the newsagent to buy their ticket when the bus stop is at their front door. Reason for doing it? No genuine reason, just being bastards. Pensioner Opal you say? Doesn't exist yet.
Same with family fun day tickets. It's better to skip public transport and drive now because who's going to buy and load up credit on opal cards for their 6 year old who travels 3 times a year. Just a quick money grab as they rake in the credit that people will never use.

Despite the propaganda, not all government buses in Sydney are Opal enabled and they're not expected to be anytime soon. For those like me who use bus and train daily the paper tickets are still the only option.

The Opal implementation is pretty poor too. The delays in opal card users getting through the gates is ridiculous. I watch people daily having to tap their cards 3 or 4 times to get through. The time delays in having to retrieve and display a users balance is ridiculous. With the paper ticket they just check validity which is recorded on the ticket and you're through. With Opal if the server link goes down or your request fails you're held up until the system decides to work. Might seem OK in the city stations but the suburban stations are a joke.

Extremely frustrating but what do you expect from a system that the government wants to get permanently locked in prior to the next election so the next government can't replace it as a failure like the tcard.

[mswhin63]

Not sure if Sydney is obstinate, but Perth still use Paper ticketing system and there is no chance of phasing out (maybe), but also you can pay for top-ups on smartcards any bus, train or ferry using cash.

May need to look into this, I am sure that many of these issues have already been thought of unless the engineers in Sydney have not input to the system or just plain silly.

Most of the time cash ticket systems are still being used mainly for people that can't turn to smartcards but also for overseas travellers that can't access smartcards technology either.

[Whales]

I watch people daily having to tap their cards 3 or 4 times to get through.

When waiting in a ticket queue you can hear the 'failure' sound effect playing ever few seconds.  Is a better RF implementation much harder?

Most of the time cash ticket systems are still being used mainly for people that can't turn to smartcards but also for overseas travellers that can't access smartcards technology either.

If paper tickets are phased out before purchasable (ie pre-paid from a store) cards are put in, the tourism industry will rapture.