The world is your Oyster (aka Opal) Card

For generations, public transport passengers in Bondi and Bronte have been switching destinations at Bondi Junction. The bus services take them to destinations in Elizabeth Street or to Railway Square to connect with Parramatta Road and City Road services. They can transfer to the Eastern Suburbs Railway for fast trips to Martin Place and Town Hall, and Wynyard and Circular Quay, and to the rest of the rail network - bus/rail from North Bondi to Martin Place takes 34 to 38 minutes whereas staying on the 333 bus takes 50 minutes, assuming there is no delay at the pinch points.

A Mybus 1 ticket will take you to Bondi Junction from North Bondi terminus and then a Mytrain ticket the rest of the journey. This not only saves passengers time it reduces the number of buses passing through the mother of all "pinch points" in Elizabeth Street northbound. The Mybus ticket structure was brought in specifically to simplify the ticketing across the public transport system as a precursor to the introduction of electronic ticketing.

The previous state government selected the Pearl Consortium (the Commonwealth Bank, Cubic Corporation and Downer EDI) as the preferred tenderer in April 2010. All the groundwork for a straightforward introduction of non-contact electronic ticketing had been done by the time the contract was signed a month after the state election. The public transport services to the Eastern Suburbs had evolved over two hundred years and the objective of minimizing bus traffic along Elizabeth Street northbound was the accepted imperative. What could go wrong?

O'Farrell publicly boasts that he will create congestion in bus routes in Elizabeth Street. TfNSW has pulled out all stops to gratify his objectives.

The SMH interviewed early-adopters at the North Bondi terminus who were using the Opal Card to get to Bondi Junction and they were unaware that they were paying almost twice as much as they would with a Mybus travelten ticket. This is hardly surprising as the only way to find out what a trip will cost you is to make a mental note of the balance on your account when you tap on at the front of the bus then use mental arithmetic to subtract the balance when you tap off. Unfortunately the Card readers on buses have vertical faces and are at waist height, as you can see - you have to crouch down to read the little window. The Readers beep at you like microwave ovens and washing machines so you don't need to see the windows.

The Opal Card readers installed at ticket barriers at train stations and on ferry wharves, and on ferries, have the windows in plain sight, as you can see, but this hardly matters as you know what you will be paying.

The sections for the Opal Card on bus routes are not based on established junctions and transfer stations such as Bondi Junction but are calculated on the distance as the crow flies between the stop where you tap on and the stop where you tap off. "For the first time, Sydney's buses will be fitted with automatic vehicle locating technology to calculate the straight line distance" between stops.

Opal Card fare bands

When the Opal Card was introduced on bus services to leafy Turramurra, TfNSW published the distances. The site now publishes details of unlikely trips where the Opal Card actually is cheaper. Contingency Law Firms will be salivating and sharpening their pencils at the thought of class actions against the state government, i.e. the NSW taxpayer. TfNSW publishes a disclaimer: "For some bus trips a customer's fare may move into a different fare band under Opal when compared to the 'sections' based paper ticket".

TfNSW claims an advantage of the Opal Card is passengers can alight at a stop, say Bondi Junction, for coffee and get back on another bus with the same route number within an hour and it just counts as the one trip. The vast savings with the Opal Card compared to single-trip Mybus tickets are detailed in a table:

These savings only accrue if you stay on a bus with the same route number. If you switch to a bus service with a different destination, or if you switch to another transport mode, say trains, this counts as a separate trip. TfNSW is giving strong economic incentives for passengers to stay on bus services headed inexorably for the "pinch point" in Elizabeth Street northbound.

Two hundred years of established public transport practice will have been overturned. Collateral damage to Eastern Suburbs public transport will be irreversible.

O'Farrell could not be more gratified.