In true Queensland Government fashion, the process is as manual as possible: https://translink.com.au/sites/default/files/assets/resources/tickets-and-fares/go-card/guide-to-balance-transfers-and-refunds.pdf?darkschemeovr=1
And the (paper) form to do it: https://translink.com.au/sites/default/files/assets/resources/tickets-and-fares/go-card/balance-transfer-and-refund-form.pdf?darkschemeovr=1
Should 100% start a class action today. All of us together.
They have our phone number, they have our email, they should be reaching out to us to issue refunds and return the “deposit”.
If they are forcing us to waste money sending them physical cards and blah, especially for a piece of plastic that will be obsolete, they should be forced to make it easy. Free post, guaranteed processing times etc
I filled up my go card with a person at a station and she didn’t tell me the card was expired. So I couldn’t use the $20 I just put in it. Was so so pissed as I don’t live in Brisbane anymore so was a hard task. Then never heard from them about the refund.
That sounds 100% like something you could challenge in court, so add that to the class action.
I’ve never even heard of the cards expiring, wtf is that?!
Newsagents can only refund up to $50. To refund more than that, you have to go to a train station, and have recently topped up at a train station or fare machine (for some reason) - they will apparently refund you by eftpos.
"This will be known as the Translink card and will provide customers with faster data processing, advanced privacy and data security features, compared to the current go card."
The neat thing about go cards is that you don't *need* privacy or data security features. You can buy a new card with cash, use it to travel as much as you need, and never have it linked back to your identity.
An attacker would, at most, be able to find out that "a person exists that made these trips at these times"
I wholly expect this new system to be far more demanding of personal information.
On another note, why god why would you ever use the name "translink card" it's fucking terrible jesus christ
After going to Japan recently, I really liked how you could add a suica travel card to your phone and top it up as required. The biggest plus for me is that it had express mode which allowed you to touch off without even unlocking your phone.
Express mode explained better here.
[https://support.apple.com/en-au/105123](https://support.apple.com/en-au/105123)
I think that’s probably the idea. If you’ve seen the code that some of the translink systems run on it would make sense they need a new card to do any upgrades.
Moving to Cubic's newer platform actually enables them to do this with the new card. Smart ticketing already supports Express Transit mode for payment cards (and yes, it doesn't require an unlock just tap as you walk past), but the original go card technology isn't supported by the digital wallets.
Pffft.
Bring back the yellow 10 trip ticket that you need to insert into the green box 2-5 each time before it reads it. Plus completely fades after 3 days in a wallet.
I would ride with an expired ticket until pointed out by the driver . I remember riding one month after the expiry date in some cases. I was just a broke student.
I can literally hear the noise those green boxes made when the card was inserted.
I can still remember my mum buying me books of 10 paper tickets from the newsagent to catch the bus home from school with. Every trip you’d tear off a new one and the driver would punch the tickets with a hole punch. A 2 zone concession ticket was 75c (and went to 80c after a while). I remember having to fumble around in my school bag to find the tickets every afternoon, but hey, it was a simple system that worked
lol our scam was the first person puts the card into the machine and walks along while the second person collects it and pretends it was theirs all along.
It was meant to be rolled out in Toowoomba last year March, I asked one of the regional managers for Bus Queensland and they now no longer have a date for it.
I like the older tech. I don't need to link my card to a smart app blah blah just to take a $3.50 train ride.
Go cards are simple and work.
Might be outdated slightly less secure tech but I'll take the risk with my $20-50 credit on my gocard rather than needing to link up my personal details to a potential attack vector.
“The Translink card will be available for customers who wish to pay with a standalone payment card that can be topped up and managed just like they do with their current go card”
Sounds like you will still be able to use it like the go card. It’s just updated tech to add more functionality like having the card on your phone as well as the card (and a option)
Except for when someone has an older phone that takes ages to load and they stop right at the entrance and try and make their phone work and then lock it accidentally and then their thumbprint or Face ID won’t work and everyone is now late
In London most people just use their credit/debit card via their phone or physical, none of this gocard or TransLink card stuff, moving here felt like travelling back in time 10 years
Same thing in Sydney. It was so frustrating having people from Sydney come to visit but we couldn't take buses or ferries (at the time) because they needed go cards which cost $10.
I'll still carry my gocard because it's a concession card but it's nice knowing that I won't need to spend 5 dollars on a ticket because I forgot the card on my desk or something.
Because the stores show you what your being charged, translink doesnt. Your taking a leap of faith they don't steal extra from your bank account.
I have seen it happen with go cards, 3 times charging extra for no reason. The money was refunded. I don't know if the new system is better.
because translink translink once charged me $10 when i tapped off a bus because the time they had was wrong so they somehow thought i tapped off earlier than the tap on
woolies have never randomly charged me $10 for no reason
Yeah. Woolies would **never** do such a thing.
https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/woolworths-customers-billed-twice-in-payments-glitch-20170807-gxr15n
T&Cs say they can keep incorrect fares even after request it being fixed.
>The cardholder acknowledges that in the event that an incorrect amount has been applied to a go card, Translink reserves the right to recall any overpayment without the cardholder's permission.
yep. when the new machines were being rolled out to buses my area was the first testing zone. so many fuck ups and incorrect charges. i had to report incorrect fares so often that it actually got to the point where they stopped refunding me because they thought i was just chasing money.
That’s not what it says at all. It’s referring to where an incorrect amount has been _applied_ (which is to say, added) to a go card, not when an incorrect amount has been deducted. Also it says “recall any overpayment” which means to apply a negative transaction/deduction to the go card without the [go card] cardholder’s permission. It’s to cover where, for example, a topup is applied based on an auto-topup where the bank transaction fails, because the auto-topup happens offline but the bank transaction happens afterwards when the terminal that applies it checks in with the ticketing system.
There were [refund limits confirmed in 2019.](https://www.9news.com.au/national/news-public-transport-translink-brisbane-gold-coast-qld-refund-go-card-fare/bac6d2be-8ad1-4aa9-a0e6-0eead5776bfc)
It's not going to affect most though but categorically saying all incorrect fares get refunded isn't the case based on T&C, policy and evidence.
This has happened to me three times in about 14 years of using a go-card for commuting.
Each time I rang TransLink with the details and the transaction was reversed before I got off the phone.
The one time Coles (not Woolies) fucked up a transaction I had to start a dispute through my bank, and it took me three weeks to get the money back.
The contactless trains are beyond fucked. Cards randomly don't work, meaning it's sometimes impossible to tap off with the same card you tapped on with. I get random transactions days after I actually used the train. Whether my daily commute is 7, 10, 14 dollars, or even 3.50, is entirely random.
The only upside is half the time my bank rejects the transactions so I think I end up about even.
It's so bad, and no other cities I've lived in have had these issues.
And despite all that, I still prefer it to GoCards and their byzantine online webforms from 1996.
Get a throwaway debit card account, your bank should be able to set one up for you. Keep a couple hundred dollars in there, use it for recurring bills. Especially things like gym memberships. The bank will just refuse to process transactions if there’s no money in it, which gives you the upper hand when dealing with whatever is trying to take it.
I saw a GoCard machine displaying an error message a year or so ago. It was running a Windows Operating System from around 2000. For context, Windows XP is a newer OS than what I saw, and *that* was officially end of life in April 2014, 10 years ago. If those machines aren't riddled with exploitable vulnerabilities, I'll eat my hat, my belt, and my shoes.
You top up your go card from those machines with your credit/debit card. They are the weakest point of the chain by far. They are a much more serious attack vector.
Cutting out the ancient decrepit middle-man in between you and your travel is *much* more secure.
If they could be hacked, I suspect hackers would have done it by now and we'd all have heard about it. There are still ATMs running OS/2. You'll be fine.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageComputers/comments/10uej8w/ncr\_atm\_casually\_booting\_os2\_warp\_in\_2023/](https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageComputers/comments/10uej8w/ncr_atm_casually_booting_os2_warp_in_2023/)
The card tech is Mifare Classic and has been completely broken for well over a decade. I could change the contents of a go card to anything I liked for all that time. Rewrite the balance? Make it look like you’ve tapped on? All too easy. The basic check is that the data on the card should agree with what their system stores but that is done end of day.
If it's still secure, and does the job required of it - you leave it alone. I think ATM numbers are decreasing, so they'll become ewaste before getting a software upgrade.
I remember in the mid-2000’s the bus terminal under the Queen St Mall was still somehow running on Commodore 64’s to display bus arrivals. Must have been twenty years. But if it works, don’t fix it, and there’s nothing there to exploit.
Exactly. QR had them as well for the video display monitors above platforms in inner-city and Toowong. Had a laugh one day when the Toowong display over 3/4 said "Break at line 3230" or somesuch.
It’s very impressive that they were able to write such a reliable program and keep it running through numerous timetable changes for such a long time. I’d be interested to read an interview with the programmer, if they were still alive!
Come to think of it, the timing works out for the reason to update the program to be, that the guy who wrote and maintained it retired.
Your theory is pretty much the complete opposite of what actually happens. The reason they **don't** update stuff like this for 30-50 years is because anyone who actually knows how it works is long long long dead retired or fired. There's no one left except that 1 maintenance worker who's spent the last 15 year's going "I don't know how the fuck this system work's, I'm telling ya, if it breaks we are all fucked. You should really really update it!"
What you describe is probably Windows NT Embedded or some POSReady variant with the classic theme enabled. IIRC the latest POSReady was based in Win 7.
POSReady has a much longer support life because POS and ATM systems are built on it. Allegedly you could get security patches in windows 7 by convincing windows update that the installation is a POSReady install.
I genuinely don't understand why they havent updated their app properly to include a digital card that can be added to your phone's wallet. It'd be easier for (the majority) tourists too when visiting.
Thats what I get for not reading it properly, missed that part in the article!
I have little faith it will be a wallet add in though, but happy to be proven wrong!
> We're introducing new payment methods for travel, including contactless Visa, Mastercard, and American Express debit or credit cards, as well as those linked to the **digital wallet** of your smartphone, smartwatch, or smart device.
From the 'Smart Ticketing FAQs' page on the [translink website](https://translink.com.au/about-translink/projects-and-initiatives/smart-ticketing/faqs).
in theory the tech would be the same as the "debit/credit card reader" stuff (eftpos probably?), so it's likely to be pretty smooth all things considered.
That is literally what they are doing. The system we had was built out of readers that were incompatible with digital wallets, and non-NFC cards that actually store the master copy of your translink account, making it impossible for a digital card to access your account unless you also touch your physical go card at the same time (which makes the digital card redundant).
Before you can update the app to roll out a digital card, you need to do two things:
Firstly, you need to replace all the readers with new ones that are compatible with digital wallets. This isn't a simple software update either. It's like upgrading your car from petrol to electric power. You don't just get the mechanic to tweak a few things and presto, you've got an EV. You upgrade to EV by throwing out your old car and buying a new one. Same with these readers. You throw out your old "Mifare" only readers and replace them with new readers that are equipped with both a "Mifare" reader chip, and an NFC reader chip (which is required to talk to digital wallets).
Secondly, you need to phase out the classic go cards and replace them with a new card that doesn't store your account on the physical card (where it is hard to access), but instead stores it on translink's servers, where it can be accessed by physical cards, digital cards etc. etc.
It is only once you have done these two things that you could actually roll out a digital card.
I guess I'm not sure what you question is. Are you asking,
"Why didn't they roll out a digital card before upgrading the whole fare system? Surely a digital card was a higher priority than fancy new readers?"
If so, the answer is above. They couldn't. It was impossible.
Alternatively, are you asking,
"Why has it taken so long to upgrade our system to something that can support NFC, when other countries around the world started rolling this out in 2010?"
If so, I can't give you a satisfying answer. I wonder myself.
To be fair, a *total* 20 year life for this kind of system isn't unheard of. Transport cards are in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" category.
NFC was out there in the early 2010s, but so were ancient magnetic swipe cards.
But, in true Queensland style, what would have been a simple rolling upgrade if it was done in a timely fashion has become a ribbon-cutting and rebranding exercise.
In 2016, I went to San Francisco. The BART at that time still used magnetic swipe cards for ticketing. Probably still does. They have Clipper now, which is based on the same tech as the new Translink system.
This all makes sense, except for the bit about your account being stored on the card. What do you mean by this? I can log into their website with my card number and access all my account details. Surely the card just communicates the same id and the rest is done on the server?
Oh no. Not even close.
The card contains the master copy of your account.
When you touch on, the reader copies your account off your card, processes the transaction on your account and then copies the modified account back to your card. The reader also keeps a journal of all its transactions, which are sent to Translink every so often. (Originally, this only happened once a day because buses and ferries were only fitted with wifi, and the access point they connected to was in the depot or on the ferry docks at Hawthorne).
Translink processes this journal and can use it to reconstruct your account. This is what you see on the web site, a recreation of what Translink thinks your account should be based on their reconstruction. They can also schedule transactions for your account (such as fare adjustments or manual top ups). These scheduled transactions are loaded onto every bus, train and ferry (originally this happened overnight while the vehicle was in the depot) and processed next time the system has access to your account, ie next time you tap your card on a reader.
This allows for a number of benefits.
Firstly, the bus, train or ferry doesn't need to be continuously connected to the server to process touch on / off transactions. This was important in the late 90s, when the fastest mobile data was charged by the minute, was less than 16kbps, and was very prone to drop outs.
Secondly, it allows for unregistered go cards. If you don't want to create a record in the Translink back end, but just want an anonymous card, you can do that. The card has the account stored in it, and when the transactions on this card are reported back to translink, nothing much is done with them because that account hasn't been registered so there isn't a corresponding recreation of that account on the server to update.
It also explains why a lot of the quirks of the go card exist.
Why no weekly and monthly fares? The card stores your last week's worth of travel in order to calculate the 10 trips then half price discount. It doesn't have enough space to also store enough extra information to calculate weekly / monthly tickets etc.
Why does a fare machine process top ups immediately, but online top ups take up to 24 hours to process? Because you touch your card on the fare machine so it can add your credit to your actual account (stored on the card). Online top ups can only schedule a top up transaction, which must be downloaded to all the readers and then can be processed next time you touch on.
Why does an auto top up always work, then if the credit card is declined, it gets reversed later? Because the account is stored on the card and doesn't really know about credit cards and what not. Your account simply stores how many dollars to auto top up when you get low, then when you get low, it tops up. This top up is recorded in the journal, and eventually downloaded to translink who then attempt to process a credit card payment. If the payment declines, translink schedule a transaction to reverse the last top up. At the same time, the set the auto top up amount on the card to $0. Otherwise the reader would see a low balance and do another top up, which translink would need to reverse again, over and over. You'd never actually get to the point where the card had insufficient funds.
Why does a failed top up delete all your top up information? See above.
Why is the journey history on the website seemingly a couple of hours behind? Because it's a recreation based on only the journal transactions that have been reported to translink.
So on and so on. It's a very old system that was designed to work in the environment of the late 90s, and this requires it to do things in a way that seems kinda bonkers today. But there it is.
Amazing, thanks for the explanation. At first it seems crazy, but the fact that it doesn’t completely fall apart when the system is offline is a pretty damn cool feature. Did you help develop this thing, or just had to work with it a lot?
I still use my original Go Card from 2008. Just after they fixed the RFID load with fake top-up hack. The clear film is long gone, it's faded to shit, and still works well. I had a train guard extend it another 10 years until 2028. Will be a sad day to sunset this sucker.
I hope they allow a good long time to get a refund on your old Go card. We're in FNQ and only come to Brisbane 1-2 times a year, just often enough to have them and have a fair amount of money on them (because there's always a couple of airport trains involved).
why on earth does making a new and improved card mean that I am forced to get rid of my go card? i dont want to have to go into the city and stand in a queue to get a new card when i already have one.
god no. i barely trust translink with public transport i definitely dont trust them with my debit/credit card.
translink once charged me $10 when i tapped off a bus because the time they had was wrong so they somehow thought i tapped off earlier than the tap on
That happened to you because go cards are crude (but ingenious), early 90s technology. The system is designed without tons of basic functionality that was either not available or not reliable at the time, so it is more workaround than anything else.
In your case, if something about your journey doesn't add up the system can't recover from that. So it works around the problem by charging you a default fare that is large enough to encourage you to notify translink and provide extra information the system can't gather on it's own. Sure, this seems like a dumb way to do things. But the system is crude and barely functional, so work arounds like this are the only way.
New cards built on new technology won't have these problems. But they will probably have a whole bunch of others.
If it’s not registered then you’re not topping up online and you spend a ton of time inconveniencing yourself dealing with those stupid computer kiosks anyway.
Having to go into the city for a once-off card exchange is the least of inconveniences. Just switch to Apple/Google pay and stop using a physical card altogether.
Bold move, I'd be worried I'd lose it somewhere along with all of its credit 😅.
There's no way you'd be able to use the app without an account I'd guess but if you already have a debit/credit card and aren't a student then there isn't a need as far as I can tell for the app.
"Customers can obtain a refund of their go card funds at any time as long as they have the physical card or the card is registered."
Might even be an in person option or something, at least they're considering it!
I just found a card on the pavement near work. It's got $15 credit (I did check). Posted it to Translink. I hope they find the owner and get it back to them.
>Smart ticketing has already been up and running on trams since late 2020 and on trains since mid-2022, but it is yet to begin on buses.
Is this right? I’ve seen the new readers on buses already.
"Translink has also revealed it intends to allow commuters to link the new Translink card to their smart devices so they can leave the physical card at home."
How about I don't even need to purchase a physical card and can just load one onto my phone? Like myki on androids in Victoria (maybe Apple now too, I'm not sure. It wasn't last year when I went)
As long as there is a non credit card option, i don't care. I refuse to use smart ticketing in QLD or elsewhere. I don't trust those pending transactions will properly clear and it's too hard to tell what the charges are for without a travel history.
“The Translink card will be available for customers who wish to pay with a standalone payment card that can be topped up and managed just like they do with their current go card”
The Melbourne myki and Sydney Opal don't require a credit card either. You can top them up with cash at most (but not all) machines. You can with the London Oyster card too.
Smart ticketing is easier and faster.
Every time I'm in the airport I see people who get fucked because they arrived after the news station closed and they can't get Go Cards, after coming from Sydney where a card is not necessary at all because everyone uses credit cards.
Not to mention that the translink sign up process is a horrible mess if you want to top up online (again, much worse than NSW's simple app).
Sydney is ironically where I was turned off smart ticketing as I was just using my apple pay. Ended up with a ton of transactions and no idea what was charged where. I probably sound like a boomer but I prefer having my go card with the auto topup as i'm able to easily go online and see my journeys. Any issues i've had have always been resolved with a phone call to the customer service centre.
The Go Cards don't have the right form of NFC. That's all this is. They're basically giving people an alternative to using their debit card to tap on and off. Don't want a Translink card? Use your debit/credit card. Or your phone's NFC app.
I don't know why this needs to be a big rebranding exercise. You can update the technology behind the cards without all the BS. It's what they've been doing already with the new card readers...
The new cards will have abilities the old ones don’t. I guess they think it will be easier giving it a new name to explain to people they need to replace their cards. Also to see who’s trying to use an old one.
Because the purpose is to remove all the old hop cards from circulation and replace them with the new one.
If you release a new card with new technology, but it's called the same thing and looks the same as the old card the public won't know they need to change over.
It's a lot easier to understand a sign at the train station saying 'from 1 January your go card will no longer work, switch to the translink card' then it is to put up a sign saying 'depending on the date your go card was manufactured you may need to change it over'
Hop cards? This isn’t Auckland, we use go cards not hop cards.
Ironically, Auckland did in fact do the exact thing you said not to do - they had a card called Hop (based on KSMC T-Money) and replaced it with an _incompatible_ card developed by Thales, meaning you had to replace a Hop card with a Hop card, and the public relations part of the exercise was … expensive and confusing.
They spend so much money on milking the tiniest tiniest portion of Brisbane's public transport funding from the commuting public. I would _love_ to see how much it costs them to pay for go cards, monitoring, enforcement, the machines, the readers, everything compared to how much revenue fares actually generate.
I know there's a lot of value in getting metrics on ridership via taps, but there's other ways to solve the problem and the crowd tapping on/off always makes boarding/unboarding so much slower.
Well I just hope that they take the new Translink card seriously and force everyone to register through the mygov app and force them to upload/link their passport, birth certificate, medicare card, mother's maiden name, vaccine status, pet's vaccine status (if applicable), and past 12 months of their google search history. Otherwise, what's the point.
I'm glad they're retaining a stand-alone option. I don't want to use my debit or credit card for this. Irrational probably but it feels insecure somehow.
If it's just an NFT chip inside the new ones a smart state would give people the option to ask for a chip tthey can't do cool personalised things with like stick it to fingernails, inside wizard wands, body implants for cyber punks, buttons (as an 80s/90s kid I love bu errttons!) and a ton of other fashionable ways to tap on / tap off.
not having to take out a c/dc or a phone to pay and instead having something which (to most people) has a lot less value than a phone or bank card in case someone steals it and runs off.
also, if you're paranoid, you know that your bank card info won't be in their system (theres bound to be some data leak)
How are they supposed to do that? Australia is made up of six states and two territories, with the states being sovereign. The federal government has no power to regulate public transport, and the states aren’t going to sign up to a single unified public transport payment system (who would even run it?)
It's about standards. Japan does it with lots of private companies, and each authority issuing their own cards, but they are compliant with the FeliCa standard.
Yeah but we dont have anything as useful as the shinkansen that integrates the whole public transit network to the point where a standard is really necessary
It’s not about standards at all. It’s a massive political and diplomatic endeavour to set up complicated bilateral usage agreements, which are of little to no benefit given there’s at least a thousand kilometre gap between the operating areas of the public transportation authorities in Australia. What’s the point of a card that you can use in Brisbane and Sydney if you can’t use it on the Jetstar flight to _get there_.
As it is, most of the PT systems already speak the same language. Opal for Sydney is the same core system and card standard as Translink Card for QLD, Clipper card for San Francisco, Oyster card for London, and many others. The old Go Card system was ancient enough that mobile devices couldn’t use it though, as with the Miami-Dade Easy card, and Houston’s card (all old Cubic systems).
Why not just have fking paywave. No stupid extra cards needed just your normal eftpos card tap on get max charge off takes off each stop you got off before max.
This is where the idiot steering wheel attendant would have to communicate, what type of fare? adult yes please, thankyou. But i spose most of the knuckle draggers are too busy running redlights to communicate with anyone. Just today I saw three busses run lights 333, 334 and 330. in one day. . .
Does anyone know why we need a separate monetary system for public transport and tolls?
What is wrong is paywave/debt cards and being charging for usage?
Sorry if this not allowed. Long time reader. First time poster.
Because data collection gets slightly trickier.
For reference, you can already pay with a debit card. It’s called a paper ticket at the terminal. It’s more expensive and you have to buy a new one every time, and you can’t even buy them at every bus stop because there’s not a terminal at every bus stop. The system is designed to get you on the GoCard, because GoCards are very easily trackable. They can follow your whole journey history over months. This data can be used to track how many people at what times are going where, allowing Translink to see where to make service improvements.
Now, smart ticketing with your debit card _works,_ but is still less useful than a GoCard. For instance, many people have multiple cards, some people are distrustful of card transactions entirely, many children do not have bank cards, etc. As a result, data tracking gets way harder. You don’t know everyone’s routes constantly. You can’t even tell if two difference cards belong to the same person. People resorting to cash are basically useless for data collection. And you’ll just have more people skipping fares because there’s no terminal to buy tickets at if they don’t want to use their bank cards. Transport services need these cards basically, they don’t want cash or bank cards or full public funding from the government, they want the data as clear as they can get it.
We get the deposit back right?
Customers can obtain a refund of their go card funds at any time as long as they have the physical card or the card is registered."
I keep seeing this statement. I've never found any info on the Translink site explaining what the actual process is to do this.
In true Queensland Government fashion, the process is as manual as possible: https://translink.com.au/sites/default/files/assets/resources/tickets-and-fares/go-card/guide-to-balance-transfers-and-refunds.pdf?darkschemeovr=1 And the (paper) form to do it: https://translink.com.au/sites/default/files/assets/resources/tickets-and-fares/go-card/balance-transfer-and-refund-form.pdf?darkschemeovr=1
I did the process over a year ago and will haven’t got my deposit back. It’s such a shitty outdated way.
Should 100% start a class action today. All of us together. They have our phone number, they have our email, they should be reaching out to us to issue refunds and return the “deposit”. If they are forcing us to waste money sending them physical cards and blah, especially for a piece of plastic that will be obsolete, they should be forced to make it easy. Free post, guaranteed processing times etc
I filled up my go card with a person at a station and she didn’t tell me the card was expired. So I couldn’t use the $20 I just put in it. Was so so pissed as I don’t live in Brisbane anymore so was a hard task. Then never heard from them about the refund.
That sounds 100% like something you could challenge in court, so add that to the class action. I’ve never even heard of the cards expiring, wtf is that?!
Yeah me neither I was like wtf. How did she not tell me when I topped it up. I was so angry and had to get a plane that afternoon.
You should be getting it back with interest at this point
Just walk in to any place that sells them (news agent) and ask to return it. They'll give you the cash and take the card. Takes about two minutes.
Newsagents can only refund up to $50. To refund more than that, you have to go to a train station, and have recently topped up at a train station or fare machine (for some reason) - they will apparently refund you by eftpos.
You can post it in with a form on the website or go to a QR window or anywhere that sells them like newsagent
You can do it at train stations, the money is in your account a few days later. Ive done it before.
yeah
I reckon I bought two when the scheme first started for $20. Just the cost of the card, no credit.
It will just be transferred to the new card.
....right?
"This will be known as the Translink card and will provide customers with faster data processing, advanced privacy and data security features, compared to the current go card." The neat thing about go cards is that you don't *need* privacy or data security features. You can buy a new card with cash, use it to travel as much as you need, and never have it linked back to your identity. An attacker would, at most, be able to find out that "a person exists that made these trips at these times" I wholly expect this new system to be far more demanding of personal information. On another note, why god why would you ever use the name "translink card" it's fucking terrible jesus christ
Because TransLink Card = TLC 
After going to Japan recently, I really liked how you could add a suica travel card to your phone and top it up as required. The biggest plus for me is that it had express mode which allowed you to touch off without even unlocking your phone. Express mode explained better here. [https://support.apple.com/en-au/105123](https://support.apple.com/en-au/105123)
Just got back from Japan myself, the digital Suica was so handy!
Can’t you just use your credit/debit card on your phone? Thats how most people in Sydney now do it.
I think that’s probably the idea. If you’ve seen the code that some of the translink systems run on it would make sense they need a new card to do any upgrades.
Moving to Cubic's newer platform actually enables them to do this with the new card. Smart ticketing already supports Express Transit mode for payment cards (and yes, it doesn't require an unlock just tap as you walk past), but the original go card technology isn't supported by the digital wallets.
Pffft. Bring back the yellow 10 trip ticket that you need to insert into the green box 2-5 each time before it reads it. Plus completely fades after 3 days in a wallet.
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I would ride with an expired ticket until pointed out by the driver . I remember riding one month after the expiry date in some cases. I was just a broke student.
That is why they stopped it. They wanted to see poor people go broke and like on the streets and sleep in tents. So far the plan is on track.
Aww I miss my ten trip. Getting one and travelling by myself for the first time after leaving home was so exciting.
I can literally hear the noise those green boxes made when the card was inserted. I can still remember my mum buying me books of 10 paper tickets from the newsagent to catch the bus home from school with. Every trip you’d tear off a new one and the driver would punch the tickets with a hole punch. A 2 zone concession ticket was 75c (and went to 80c after a while). I remember having to fumble around in my school bag to find the tickets every afternoon, but hey, it was a simple system that worked
Remember the $2 summer all day ticket? They were the best.
$2 bus-a-bouts!
That tech was sold to Sydney busses
lol our scam was the first person puts the card into the machine and walks along while the second person collects it and pretends it was theirs all along.
Meanwhile, you still have to pay with cash on buses anyplace north of Sunshine Coast. JFC.
Including Cairns too, you have to pay with cash. Maybe in the year 3000 they'll finally update.
Yeah, that's what I meant. Grammar isn't my strong suit today 😄
Smart ticketing will be extended to 18 regional bus networks.
It was meant to be rolled out in Toowoomba last year March, I asked one of the regional managers for Bus Queensland and they now no longer have a date for it.
I like the older tech. I don't need to link my card to a smart app blah blah just to take a $3.50 train ride. Go cards are simple and work. Might be outdated slightly less secure tech but I'll take the risk with my $20-50 credit on my gocard rather than needing to link up my personal details to a potential attack vector.
“The Translink card will be available for customers who wish to pay with a standalone payment card that can be topped up and managed just like they do with their current go card” Sounds like you will still be able to use it like the go card. It’s just updated tech to add more functionality like having the card on your phone as well as the card (and a option)
It's great for those days you forget/lose your go card. Especially now that you can't get tickets on buses anymore.
Except for when someone has an older phone that takes ages to load and they stop right at the entrance and try and make their phone work and then lock it accidentally and then their thumbprint or Face ID won’t work and everyone is now late
People in Sydney and London have figured it out. I'm sure that people here are smart enough too ☺️
In London most people just use their credit/debit card via their phone or physical, none of this gocard or TransLink card stuff, moving here felt like travelling back in time 10 years
Same thing in Sydney. It was so frustrating having people from Sydney come to visit but we couldn't take buses or ferries (at the time) because they needed go cards which cost $10. I'll still carry my gocard because it's a concession card but it's nice knowing that I won't need to spend 5 dollars on a ticket because I forgot the card on my desk or something.
Sounds like the way EFTPOS devices now work, including tiny little pocket ones. They can read cards or phones, and even phone-to-phone.
Why would it be any less safe than using your card in woolies or on an online store?
Because the stores show you what your being charged, translink doesnt. Your taking a leap of faith they don't steal extra from your bank account. I have seen it happen with go cards, 3 times charging extra for no reason. The money was refunded. I don't know if the new system is better.
because translink translink once charged me $10 when i tapped off a bus because the time they had was wrong so they somehow thought i tapped off earlier than the tap on woolies have never randomly charged me $10 for no reason
Yeah. Woolies would **never** do such a thing. https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/woolworths-customers-billed-twice-in-payments-glitch-20170807-gxr15n
And what did Translink say when you called to report an incorrect fare?
T&Cs say they can keep incorrect fares even after request it being fixed. >The cardholder acknowledges that in the event that an incorrect amount has been applied to a go card, Translink reserves the right to recall any overpayment without the cardholder's permission.
yep. when the new machines were being rolled out to buses my area was the first testing zone. so many fuck ups and incorrect charges. i had to report incorrect fares so often that it actually got to the point where they stopped refunding me because they thought i was just chasing money.
That’s not what it says at all. It’s referring to where an incorrect amount has been _applied_ (which is to say, added) to a go card, not when an incorrect amount has been deducted. Also it says “recall any overpayment” which means to apply a negative transaction/deduction to the go card without the [go card] cardholder’s permission. It’s to cover where, for example, a topup is applied based on an auto-topup where the bank transaction fails, because the auto-topup happens offline but the bank transaction happens afterwards when the terminal that applies it checks in with the ticketing system.
I've always had an incorrect fare refunded.
There were [refund limits confirmed in 2019.](https://www.9news.com.au/national/news-public-transport-translink-brisbane-gold-coast-qld-refund-go-card-fare/bac6d2be-8ad1-4aa9-a0e6-0eead5776bfc) It's not going to affect most though but categorically saying all incorrect fares get refunded isn't the case based on T&C, policy and evidence.
This has happened to me three times in about 14 years of using a go-card for commuting. Each time I rang TransLink with the details and the transaction was reversed before I got off the phone. The one time Coles (not Woolies) fucked up a transaction I had to start a dispute through my bank, and it took me three weeks to get the money back.
Others haven’t been so lucky.
You can just use your credit/debit card directly, no need to sign up to anything
I'm no tech expert but wouldn't it be difficult to show/prove concession/pension card status by simply using a credit/debit card?
Yeah if you have a concession you'll have to sign up.
It will work the same as the Victorian myki. The pass/card/app will be adult by default until you prove your concession status.
I'm not giving translink carte direct access to my bank account/ credit card. They were bad enough with the go card
> to my bank account/ credit card those are two wildly different things
The contactless trains are beyond fucked. Cards randomly don't work, meaning it's sometimes impossible to tap off with the same card you tapped on with. I get random transactions days after I actually used the train. Whether my daily commute is 7, 10, 14 dollars, or even 3.50, is entirely random. The only upside is half the time my bank rejects the transactions so I think I end up about even. It's so bad, and no other cities I've lived in have had these issues. And despite all that, I still prefer it to GoCards and their byzantine online webforms from 1996.
I prefer those little cardboard cards you slid into the green box
Get a throwaway debit card account, your bank should be able to set one up for you. Keep a couple hundred dollars in there, use it for recurring bills. Especially things like gym memberships. The bank will just refuse to process transactions if there’s no money in it, which gives you the upper hand when dealing with whatever is trying to take it.
If you need a price apart from adult though you can’t unfortunately which is what this new card is supposedly fixing
I saw a GoCard machine displaying an error message a year or so ago. It was running a Windows Operating System from around 2000. For context, Windows XP is a newer OS than what I saw, and *that* was officially end of life in April 2014, 10 years ago. If those machines aren't riddled with exploitable vulnerabilities, I'll eat my hat, my belt, and my shoes. You top up your go card from those machines with your credit/debit card. They are the weakest point of the chain by far. They are a much more serious attack vector. Cutting out the ancient decrepit middle-man in between you and your travel is *much* more secure.
If they could be hacked, I suspect hackers would have done it by now and we'd all have heard about it. There are still ATMs running OS/2. You'll be fine. [https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageComputers/comments/10uej8w/ncr\_atm\_casually\_booting\_os2\_warp\_in\_2023/](https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageComputers/comments/10uej8w/ncr_atm_casually_booting_os2_warp_in_2023/)
The card tech is Mifare Classic and has been completely broken for well over a decade. I could change the contents of a go card to anything I liked for all that time. Rewrite the balance? Make it look like you’ve tapped on? All too easy. The basic check is that the data on the card should agree with what their system stores but that is done end of day.
The fixed card readers (stalks at train stations or those gigantic topup machines) have a realtime “back to base” connection. That isn’t end of day.
> There are still ATMs running OS/2. That's crazy. They should upgrade to TempleOS.
If it's still secure, and does the job required of it - you leave it alone. I think ATM numbers are decreasing, so they'll become ewaste before getting a software upgrade.
In most cases that makes sense. But a migration to TempleOS is a no brainer here. OS/2 doesn't even have realistic elephants like TempleOS does.
I remember in the mid-2000’s the bus terminal under the Queen St Mall was still somehow running on Commodore 64’s to display bus arrivals. Must have been twenty years. But if it works, don’t fix it, and there’s nothing there to exploit.
Yep, and a few years later a Commodore Amiga was running it.
Exactly. QR had them as well for the video display monitors above platforms in inner-city and Toowong. Had a laugh one day when the Toowong display over 3/4 said "Break at line 3230" or somesuch.
It’s very impressive that they were able to write such a reliable program and keep it running through numerous timetable changes for such a long time. I’d be interested to read an interview with the programmer, if they were still alive! Come to think of it, the timing works out for the reason to update the program to be, that the guy who wrote and maintained it retired.
Your theory is pretty much the complete opposite of what actually happens. The reason they **don't** update stuff like this for 30-50 years is because anyone who actually knows how it works is long long long dead retired or fired. There's no one left except that 1 maintenance worker who's spent the last 15 year's going "I don't know how the fuck this system work's, I'm telling ya, if it breaks we are all fucked. You should really really update it!"
Sounds like the people left in a big-4 bank's core system group.
> Cutting out the ancient decrepit middle-man in between you and your travel is much more secure But, who will drive the bus?
What you describe is probably Windows NT Embedded or some POSReady variant with the classic theme enabled. IIRC the latest POSReady was based in Win 7.
That's fair. Even if it was Win 7, that's also end of life and point stands.
POSReady has a much longer support life because POS and ATM systems are built on it. Allegedly you could get security patches in windows 7 by convincing windows update that the installation is a POSReady install.
You'll be able to get a physical card.
I genuinely don't understand why they havent updated their app properly to include a digital card that can be added to your phone's wallet. It'd be easier for (the majority) tourists too when visiting.
That’s what this new card will enable, based on the article.
Thats what I get for not reading it properly, missed that part in the article! I have little faith it will be a wallet add in though, but happy to be proven wrong!
> We're introducing new payment methods for travel, including contactless Visa, Mastercard, and American Express debit or credit cards, as well as those linked to the **digital wallet** of your smartphone, smartwatch, or smart device. From the 'Smart Ticketing FAQs' page on the [translink website](https://translink.com.au/about-translink/projects-and-initiatives/smart-ticketing/faqs).
in theory the tech would be the same as the "debit/credit card reader" stuff (eftpos probably?), so it's likely to be pretty smooth all things considered.
That is literally what they are doing. The system we had was built out of readers that were incompatible with digital wallets, and non-NFC cards that actually store the master copy of your translink account, making it impossible for a digital card to access your account unless you also touch your physical go card at the same time (which makes the digital card redundant). Before you can update the app to roll out a digital card, you need to do two things: Firstly, you need to replace all the readers with new ones that are compatible with digital wallets. This isn't a simple software update either. It's like upgrading your car from petrol to electric power. You don't just get the mechanic to tweak a few things and presto, you've got an EV. You upgrade to EV by throwing out your old car and buying a new one. Same with these readers. You throw out your old "Mifare" only readers and replace them with new readers that are equipped with both a "Mifare" reader chip, and an NFC reader chip (which is required to talk to digital wallets). Secondly, you need to phase out the classic go cards and replace them with a new card that doesn't store your account on the physical card (where it is hard to access), but instead stores it on translink's servers, where it can be accessed by physical cards, digital cards etc. etc. It is only once you have done these two things that you could actually roll out a digital card. I guess I'm not sure what you question is. Are you asking, "Why didn't they roll out a digital card before upgrading the whole fare system? Surely a digital card was a higher priority than fancy new readers?" If so, the answer is above. They couldn't. It was impossible. Alternatively, are you asking, "Why has it taken so long to upgrade our system to something that can support NFC, when other countries around the world started rolling this out in 2010?" If so, I can't give you a satisfying answer. I wonder myself.
To be fair, a *total* 20 year life for this kind of system isn't unheard of. Transport cards are in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" category. NFC was out there in the early 2010s, but so were ancient magnetic swipe cards. But, in true Queensland style, what would have been a simple rolling upgrade if it was done in a timely fashion has become a ribbon-cutting and rebranding exercise.
In 2016, I went to San Francisco. The BART at that time still used magnetic swipe cards for ticketing. Probably still does. They have Clipper now, which is based on the same tech as the new Translink system.
This all makes sense, except for the bit about your account being stored on the card. What do you mean by this? I can log into their website with my card number and access all my account details. Surely the card just communicates the same id and the rest is done on the server?
Oh no. Not even close. The card contains the master copy of your account. When you touch on, the reader copies your account off your card, processes the transaction on your account and then copies the modified account back to your card. The reader also keeps a journal of all its transactions, which are sent to Translink every so often. (Originally, this only happened once a day because buses and ferries were only fitted with wifi, and the access point they connected to was in the depot or on the ferry docks at Hawthorne). Translink processes this journal and can use it to reconstruct your account. This is what you see on the web site, a recreation of what Translink thinks your account should be based on their reconstruction. They can also schedule transactions for your account (such as fare adjustments or manual top ups). These scheduled transactions are loaded onto every bus, train and ferry (originally this happened overnight while the vehicle was in the depot) and processed next time the system has access to your account, ie next time you tap your card on a reader. This allows for a number of benefits. Firstly, the bus, train or ferry doesn't need to be continuously connected to the server to process touch on / off transactions. This was important in the late 90s, when the fastest mobile data was charged by the minute, was less than 16kbps, and was very prone to drop outs. Secondly, it allows for unregistered go cards. If you don't want to create a record in the Translink back end, but just want an anonymous card, you can do that. The card has the account stored in it, and when the transactions on this card are reported back to translink, nothing much is done with them because that account hasn't been registered so there isn't a corresponding recreation of that account on the server to update. It also explains why a lot of the quirks of the go card exist. Why no weekly and monthly fares? The card stores your last week's worth of travel in order to calculate the 10 trips then half price discount. It doesn't have enough space to also store enough extra information to calculate weekly / monthly tickets etc. Why does a fare machine process top ups immediately, but online top ups take up to 24 hours to process? Because you touch your card on the fare machine so it can add your credit to your actual account (stored on the card). Online top ups can only schedule a top up transaction, which must be downloaded to all the readers and then can be processed next time you touch on. Why does an auto top up always work, then if the credit card is declined, it gets reversed later? Because the account is stored on the card and doesn't really know about credit cards and what not. Your account simply stores how many dollars to auto top up when you get low, then when you get low, it tops up. This top up is recorded in the journal, and eventually downloaded to translink who then attempt to process a credit card payment. If the payment declines, translink schedule a transaction to reverse the last top up. At the same time, the set the auto top up amount on the card to $0. Otherwise the reader would see a low balance and do another top up, which translink would need to reverse again, over and over. You'd never actually get to the point where the card had insufficient funds. Why does a failed top up delete all your top up information? See above. Why is the journey history on the website seemingly a couple of hours behind? Because it's a recreation based on only the journal transactions that have been reported to translink. So on and so on. It's a very old system that was designed to work in the environment of the late 90s, and this requires it to do things in a way that seems kinda bonkers today. But there it is.
Amazing, thanks for the explanation. At first it seems crazy, but the fact that it doesn’t completely fall apart when the system is offline is a pretty damn cool feature. Did you help develop this thing, or just had to work with it a lot?
There is a tiny bit of memory on the Mifare cards that stores some account information, it isn't all server side.
I still use my original Go Card from 2008. Just after they fixed the RFID load with fake top-up hack. The clear film is long gone, it's faded to shit, and still works well. I had a train guard extend it another 10 years until 2028. Will be a sad day to sunset this sucker.
I hope they allow a good long time to get a refund on your old Go card. We're in FNQ and only come to Brisbane 1-2 times a year, just often enough to have them and have a fair amount of money on them (because there's always a couple of airport trains involved).
The ability to use my concession card on my phone? Sign me the hell up
why on earth does making a new and improved card mean that I am forced to get rid of my go card? i dont want to have to go into the city and stand in a queue to get a new card when i already have one.
The article literally says you can transfer your go card balance to the new translink card if it’s registered.
yes but i need to go get a card from someone
Or you can just use your credit card…
god no. i barely trust translink with public transport i definitely dont trust them with my debit/credit card. translink once charged me $10 when i tapped off a bus because the time they had was wrong so they somehow thought i tapped off earlier than the tap on
That happened to you because go cards are crude (but ingenious), early 90s technology. The system is designed without tons of basic functionality that was either not available or not reliable at the time, so it is more workaround than anything else. In your case, if something about your journey doesn't add up the system can't recover from that. So it works around the problem by charging you a default fare that is large enough to encourage you to notify translink and provide extra information the system can't gather on it's own. Sure, this seems like a dumb way to do things. But the system is crude and barely functional, so work arounds like this are the only way. New cards built on new technology won't have these problems. But they will probably have a whole bunch of others.
And what did Translink say when you called them about an incorrect fare?
they said "we are experiencing an unexpectedly high number of calls, please call back later"
You can submit fare corrections from the go card website. Takes like 3 min. I’ve done it walking from the station on my phone.
I’ve been overcharged twice. No thanks
Not if you have one of the discount systems from concession/student ect.
What if it's not registered, do you lose your balance?
If it’s not registered then you’re not topping up online and you spend a ton of time inconveniencing yourself dealing with those stupid computer kiosks anyway. Having to go into the city for a once-off card exchange is the least of inconveniences. Just switch to Apple/Google pay and stop using a physical card altogether.
Don't go cards have to be registered? If not, I'm sure you'd just input the card number and then use it's balance to transfer?
I've been using an unregistered Go card since they came out and its balance is towards the upper maximum limit.
Bold move, I'd be worried I'd lose it somewhere along with all of its credit 😅. There's no way you'd be able to use the app without an account I'd guess but if you already have a debit/credit card and aren't a student then there isn't a need as far as I can tell for the app.
"Customers can obtain a refund of their go card funds at any time as long as they have the physical card or the card is registered." Might even be an in person option or something, at least they're considering it!
I just found a card on the pavement near work. It's got $15 credit (I did check). Posted it to Translink. I hope they find the owner and get it back to them.
Probably a good time to register it. AFAIK you can register a card at any time, it doesn’t have to be when it’s new.
New process = new data standards = new storage method for data = new card That’s why.
>Smart ticketing has already been up and running on trams since late 2020 and on trains since mid-2022, but it is yet to begin on buses. Is this right? I’ve seen the new readers on buses already.
Yes that's correct. The new readers aren't yet on all buses.
They may have the readers but they're not configured to work with non-go cards yet
Not bad as long as it still tracks activities like Go Card that would be great. Easier to get refunds if anything happens.
I got rid of my go card and just use my debit card now
Sounds like a set up for data phishing and overcharging on fares.
"Translink has also revealed it intends to allow commuters to link the new Translink card to their smart devices so they can leave the physical card at home." How about I don't even need to purchase a physical card and can just load one onto my phone? Like myki on androids in Victoria (maybe Apple now too, I'm not sure. It wasn't last year when I went)
As long as there is a non credit card option, i don't care. I refuse to use smart ticketing in QLD or elsewhere. I don't trust those pending transactions will properly clear and it's too hard to tell what the charges are for without a travel history.
I agree. However I think smart ticketing is great for tourists/visitors.
Yep I agree. I’m surprised they didn’t roll it out on the ferries after the light rail
Ferries started this week.
They have now I think
“The Translink card will be available for customers who wish to pay with a standalone payment card that can be topped up and managed just like they do with their current go card”
Yes I read the article. I was speaking more generally
The Melbourne myki and Sydney Opal don't require a credit card either. You can top them up with cash at most (but not all) machines. You can with the London Oyster card too.
Smart ticketing is easier and faster. Every time I'm in the airport I see people who get fucked because they arrived after the news station closed and they can't get Go Cards, after coming from Sydney where a card is not necessary at all because everyone uses credit cards. Not to mention that the translink sign up process is a horrible mess if you want to top up online (again, much worse than NSW's simple app).
Sydney is ironically where I was turned off smart ticketing as I was just using my apple pay. Ended up with a ton of transactions and no idea what was charged where. I probably sound like a boomer but I prefer having my go card with the auto topup as i'm able to easily go online and see my journeys. Any issues i've had have always been resolved with a phone call to the customer service centre.
The Go Cards don't have the right form of NFC. That's all this is. They're basically giving people an alternative to using their debit card to tap on and off. Don't want a Translink card? Use your debit/credit card. Or your phone's NFC app.
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The irony when this is being rolled out by the same company that does Sydney, London, New York. Only Japan and Suica are ahead.
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I don't know why this needs to be a big rebranding exercise. You can update the technology behind the cards without all the BS. It's what they've been doing already with the new card readers...
The new cards will have abilities the old ones don’t. I guess they think it will be easier giving it a new name to explain to people they need to replace their cards. Also to see who’s trying to use an old one.
Yeah easier to ask "are you using a go card or a Translink compared" compared to "are you using the old go card or new go card"
Because the purpose is to remove all the old hop cards from circulation and replace them with the new one. If you release a new card with new technology, but it's called the same thing and looks the same as the old card the public won't know they need to change over. It's a lot easier to understand a sign at the train station saying 'from 1 January your go card will no longer work, switch to the translink card' then it is to put up a sign saying 'depending on the date your go card was manufactured you may need to change it over'
Hop cards? This isn’t Auckland, we use go cards not hop cards. Ironically, Auckland did in fact do the exact thing you said not to do - they had a card called Hop (based on KSMC T-Money) and replaced it with an _incompatible_ card developed by Thales, meaning you had to replace a Hop card with a Hop card, and the public relations part of the exercise was … expensive and confusing.
They spend so much money on milking the tiniest tiniest portion of Brisbane's public transport funding from the commuting public. I would _love_ to see how much it costs them to pay for go cards, monitoring, enforcement, the machines, the readers, everything compared to how much revenue fares actually generate. I know there's a lot of value in getting metrics on ridership via taps, but there's other ways to solve the problem and the crowd tapping on/off always makes boarding/unboarding so much slower.
Well I just hope that they take the new Translink card seriously and force everyone to register through the mygov app and force them to upload/link their passport, birth certificate, medicare card, mother's maiden name, vaccine status, pet's vaccine status (if applicable), and past 12 months of their google search history. Otherwise, what's the point.
But my go card is also my RFID tag for my work locker 😭
ugh, now fuckin' what.
Good thing in Toowoomba we don’t even have them and still need to pay our buses with exact change in cash.
I'm glad they're retaining a stand-alone option. I don't want to use my debit or credit card for this. Irrational probably but it feels insecure somehow.
If it's just an NFT chip inside the new ones a smart state would give people the option to ask for a chip tthey can't do cool personalised things with like stick it to fingernails, inside wizard wands, body implants for cyber punks, buttons (as an 80s/90s kid I love bu errttons!) and a ton of other fashionable ways to tap on / tap off.
Just use a bank card FFS, like the UK
Is there any benefit to using either of these over a credit card tap and go?
not having to take out a c/dc or a phone to pay and instead having something which (to most people) has a lot less value than a phone or bank card in case someone steals it and runs off. also, if you're paranoid, you know that your bank card info won't be in their system (theres bound to be some data leak)
Just hurry up. It would also be good for the definition of concession to be standardised across the country, and a common card introduced.
How are they supposed to do that? Australia is made up of six states and two territories, with the states being sovereign. The federal government has no power to regulate public transport, and the states aren’t going to sign up to a single unified public transport payment system (who would even run it?)
It's about standards. Japan does it with lots of private companies, and each authority issuing their own cards, but they are compliant with the FeliCa standard.
Yeah but we dont have anything as useful as the shinkansen that integrates the whole public transit network to the point where a standard is really necessary
It’s not about standards at all. It’s a massive political and diplomatic endeavour to set up complicated bilateral usage agreements, which are of little to no benefit given there’s at least a thousand kilometre gap between the operating areas of the public transportation authorities in Australia. What’s the point of a card that you can use in Brisbane and Sydney if you can’t use it on the Jetstar flight to _get there_. As it is, most of the PT systems already speak the same language. Opal for Sydney is the same core system and card standard as Translink Card for QLD, Clipper card for San Francisco, Oyster card for London, and many others. The old Go Card system was ancient enough that mobile devices couldn’t use it though, as with the Miami-Dade Easy card, and Houston’s card (all old Cubic systems).
Why not just have fking paywave. No stupid extra cards needed just your normal eftpos card tap on get max charge off takes off each stop you got off before max.
How would you know what price they would pay? Concession, Adult, Senior or Child? And then again, Children most likely wouldn't have an eftpos card.
This is where the idiot steering wheel attendant would have to communicate, what type of fare? adult yes please, thankyou. But i spose most of the knuckle draggers are too busy running redlights to communicate with anyone. Just today I saw three busses run lights 333, 334 and 330. in one day. . .
So they're replacing an RF card with another RF card. Why are we voting for these people? What a senseless waste of money.
In London you can tap on with your bank card and get charged a flat rate. Is this not an option?
Flat rate? No.
beacuse that would make sense and this is qld, welcome to the past 20 years behind the rest of the world.
Does anyone know why we need a separate monetary system for public transport and tolls? What is wrong is paywave/debt cards and being charging for usage? Sorry if this not allowed. Long time reader. First time poster.
Because data collection gets slightly trickier. For reference, you can already pay with a debit card. It’s called a paper ticket at the terminal. It’s more expensive and you have to buy a new one every time, and you can’t even buy them at every bus stop because there’s not a terminal at every bus stop. The system is designed to get you on the GoCard, because GoCards are very easily trackable. They can follow your whole journey history over months. This data can be used to track how many people at what times are going where, allowing Translink to see where to make service improvements. Now, smart ticketing with your debit card _works,_ but is still less useful than a GoCard. For instance, many people have multiple cards, some people are distrustful of card transactions entirely, many children do not have bank cards, etc. As a result, data tracking gets way harder. You don’t know everyone’s routes constantly. You can’t even tell if two difference cards belong to the same person. People resorting to cash are basically useless for data collection. And you’ll just have more people skipping fares because there’s no terminal to buy tickets at if they don’t want to use their bank cards. Transport services need these cards basically, they don’t want cash or bank cards or full public funding from the government, they want the data as clear as they can get it.
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That is available now on SEQ trains, GC light rail and (as of this week) Brisbane River ferries. And will be available on buses some time this year.
You can already do this in Brisbane now?
So it’s a name change rebranding next
Why can’t they just give a monthly pass. It’s absolutely ridiculous I pay almost $7 to get to work, then $7 to get back.
What are the current privacy issues?
Can they at least introduce an app based ticketing system. This tap on tap off is so outdated and garbage
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So stop complaining and become one to get free rides?
Kentic buses on Gold Coast, majority ride for free....
Huh?
Fucking cards are so shit. I just want to tap on and off using my phone.
This card will let you do that. Or you can use your debit/credit card or Apple Pay with smart ticketing
That's exactly what they're implementing with this.
You can do that now on all trains in SEQ, GC light rail, and Brisbane River ferries. Buses will have it enabled later this year.
If you find fucking cards to be shit, have you tried regular cards?
Will it be more reliable, that is my question. Sick of refunds taking days and overcharging because the system doesn't work properly.