Action for Public Transport (N.S.W.) Inc.

Action for Public Transport (APTNSW) spokesman, Allan Miles, said that while it is frustrating that ten years work has produced nothing, there is a bright side.

"Users will not be saddled with an inefficient system that charges them maximum fares," he said, "and now more modern technology will be available."

"We were particularly concerned about the requirement for passengers to tag-off buses when alighting," Mr Miles said. "This was just looking for trouble."

Mr Miles also said that he hoped that transport bureaucrats and politicians had learned lessons from the Tcard disaster.

"During the project," he said, "the government was seen as the user of the system, and the passengers were mere appendages to be tolerated, rather than consulted."

"In the next round," he said, "the passengers must be seen as the real users. They must be accorded full stakeholder status, and involved as part of the design team."

However, Mr Miles warned that any delivery system that did not have a sound fares policy as its base was doomed to failure again. "Even at the date of scrapping Tcard," Mr Miles said, "the government had still not made up its mind about how fares would be charged."

"Fare regimes that could be used," Mr Miles said, "include flat fares, distance fares, time based or zone based fares, with many variations on those. And there are many ways of rewarding regular users with discounts." However, Mr Miles said that the government had no idea what to do about any of these.

"Fare reform is bogged down in a morass of Treasury greed and political interference," Mr Miles said. "Passengers' interests come last."

The Transport Minister, Mr Watkins, has said that the reform program would give priority back to the existing ticket system. (SMH, 18.10.2007)

Mr Miles said that the Premier, Morris Iemma, has lost the plot on transport reform. On Ninemsm Mr Iemma is reported as having said "his government would only introduce the Tcard once it was confident it would not adversely affect public transport users". "With daily media references to global warming and peak oil and his own government's State Plan," Mr Miles said, "we would have thought the Premier could do more to encourage increased public transport use. Instead, the best he can do is hope that passengers will be no worse off under a new smartcard."

Mr Miles said that a simple fares system that provides more benefits for users is essential if people are to be wooed out of their cars. A new fares system must be multi-modal, cover all operators, provide discounts for frequent users and allow free transfers within a specified time period and specified zone area. (See more comprehensive list of Desirable Outcomes below.) Further comments about the Tcard development and fare systems can be seen on APTNSW web site http://www.aptnsw.org.au/.

Contact:
	Allan Miles 9516-1906
	Kevin Eadie 9819-6052

DESIRABLE OUTCOMES OF A MODERN FARE SYSTEM

1. Multi-modal - one ticket for rail, road or rudder
2. Multi-operator - one ticket regardless of who owns the vehicle.
3. Free transfers within specified time period and specified zone area.
4. No multiple flag-falls.
5. Affordable.
6. Equitable - no discrimination based on mode or region.
7. Discounts for frequent users.
8. Caps on daily travel fare.
9. Simple to understand.
10. Convenient to use (as convenient as the passenger's motor car).
11. Encourages modal shift from private motor vehicles to public transport.
12. No requirement to tag-off if smartcard is used.
13. Pre-paid tickets to be the conventional standard.
14. Cash fares always available, but at a penalty price.
15. Adaptable for anomalies (cheap short trips, overlapping zone boundaries, etc).
16. No nexus between price of service (fares) and cost of providing service.
17. All beneficiaries share the cost. Beneficiaries of a good transit system include passengers, other road users, taxpayers, and property and business owners.
18. A single corporate identity and brand name for marketing.