Skip to main content

New South Wales scraps paper tickets

New South Wales, Australia will move towards a modern integrated electronic ticketing system on public transport on 1 August, when the last of the old paper tickets will no longer be sold or accepted. Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Andrew Constance said that customers have embraced Opal, with two million customers taking 13 million journeys a week. “Opal is being used for 95 per cent of all public transport trips,” Constance said. “Given the enormous success, it’s now time to stop running t
July 5, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
New South Wales, Australia will move towards a modern integrated electronic ticketing system on public transport on 1 August, when the last of the old paper tickets will no longer be sold or accepted.

Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Andrew Constance said that customers have embraced Opal, with two million customers taking 13 million journeys a week. “Opal is being used for 95 per cent of all public transport trips,” Constance said.

“Given the enormous success, it’s now time to stop running two ticketing systems and move to one convenient system that enables future innovation.

“With the single electronic system we can move to the next stage in ticketing, with a customer trial in 2017 for tapping on with credit and debit cards.”

Since the roll-out of Opal began in December 2012 customers have taken 800 million trips and more than 7.5 million cards have been issued, including one million Gold Senior/Pensioner cards, 700,000 Child/Youth cards, and 350,000 School Opal cards.

A comprehensive information campaign will remind the remaining customers who don’t have Opal that it’s time to make the switch.

Related Content

  • December 6, 2012
    Debating the future of in-vehicle systems
    Industry experts talk to Jason Barnes about the legislative situation of current and future in-vehicle systems. Articles about technology development can have a tendency to reference Moore’s Law with almost indecent regularity and haste but the fact remains that despite predictions of slow-down or plateauing, the pace remains unrelenting. That juxtaposes with a common tendency within the ITS industry: to concentrate on the technology and assume that much else – legislation, business cases and so on – will m
  • November 28, 2017
    ITS Australia congratulates national award winners for 2017
    Winners of the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Australia National Awards 2017 have been announced at the Art’s Centre Melbourne. The 8th edition celebrated the nation’s most innovative and advanced transport technologies from a record number of nominations across a variety of organisations. Attended by Hon Ben Caroll MP, Minister for Industry and Employment, the awards recognise professional ITS expertise and raise awareness across all levels of government and community about the technology benefits
  • October 11, 2016
    Mobile payment technologies for Australia
    Contactless technology, the ability to tap your bank issued card or enabled mobile device to make a payment, has brought speed and simplicity to the in-store shopping experience. Doug Howe explains how innovations, like Contactless, in the mobile and banking industries have the potential to transform public transportation. Q Why is public transportation ripe for transformation? A Today, more than half the world’s population lives in cities; that’s a figure set to increase to 70% by 2050. International
  • April 17, 2024
    Conduent continues New Jersey contactless upgrade
    Company also recently supplied contactless payment options on transit in Pennsylvania