[LINK] Vic transport smartcard to cost $1bn

[Tom Worthington]

At 01:41 PM 4/02/2008, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>... Vic transport smartcard to cost $1bn Ellen Whinnett February 04, 
>2008 The Australian IT 
>http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,23155542-15306,00.html

The Victorian system seemed to be workable when I tried it 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/05/victorian-public-transport-contactless.html>. 


But transport smartcard projects frequently have problems, where the 
transport companies fail to rationalize their fee structure before 
implementation. We should not be surprised that the Sydney one has 
failed, or that the Victorian one appears to be about to, but that 
some, such as Perth, seemed to have worked 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartrider>, as have London 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card>, Hong Kong 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card> and Beijing 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yikatong>. There is a UK 
based  Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Transport_Smartcard_Organisation>.

In contrast to the problems with public transport smart cards, the 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-TAG>e-TAG<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-TAG>s 
used for 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_toll_collection>electronic 
toll collection on roads in Sydney and Melbourne are working and 
interoperable. Perhaps the Australian Government should get the 
states together to produce a system which would work on public 
transport and toll roads across Australia.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, ANU