Sydney Trains in their wisdom, as part of the roll-out of the next wave of automatic ticketing machines have decided in many cases that accepting cash is no longer something that they want to do, and that EFTPOS is also something that that they are no longer interested in. The only acceptable payment that the Opal ticket machines take, is AMEX, MasterCard, and VISA. These three forms of credit card can also be used on the Opal Card readers.
What a top idea. Denying people the ability to pay, can and does lead to people not paying.
When I arrive at Marayong station, as I do not have a credit card, there is literally no ability for me to pay my fare for the week. This quite frankly is an excellent idea, especially in the west because it means that people with no ability to pay for a fare, will simply ride on the trains for free. Why bother tapping on or off, if you literally can not buy a ticket to ride. At stations on the Richmond Line, as there are no such things as barriers which impede entry, then this can and does lead to people simply walking on and off trains.
The cabinet which houses the ticket machine, has remnants of the place where once there was a PIN-pad and where there used to be coin and note acceptors; so it is like the machine is actively taunting people. There is a place in the centre of the machine to place your Opal Card so that you can top it up but given that the Opal Card readers standing on the station also use the only forms of acceptable payment that the Opal ticket machines do, what's the point?
I would expect that at a major station like Blacktown, which is both a junction for the Richmond and Western Lines, as well as being one of the few stops that Blue Mountains trains stop at, that it would have a machine that accepts either cash of EFTPOS. Nope. Blacktown Station has ONE solitary ticket machine that accepts credit cards only. Granted, there is a newsagent and what appears to be a fancy energy drinks shop which both have the ability to charge up an Opal Card but both of those are closed when I pass through the station of an evening. Yet again, as I do not have a credit card, there is literally no ability for me to pay my fare for the week.
The ticket machines themselves use an Ingenico Near-Field Communication (NFC) reader. In principle, an NFC reader does not care a jot or an iota about the kind of data passing through it. The means that the reason why Sydney Trains ticket machines refusing to accept EFTPOS is not a technical one, but rather that a policy decision.
Here's where we get down to tin tacks. I do not know who Sydney Trains does their banking with but the Ingenico machine in our office at work costs us $24.75/month for EFTPOS transactions.
There are 170 stations within the Sydney Trains network and a further 199 stations within the greater NSW TrainLink network. In total, the 369 railway stations in New South Wales, at $24.75/month for EFTPOS transactions would cost a mere $109,593 to run all the machines in the state. When you consider that many stations in New South Wales are unmanned, then paying for the equivalent of two staff members for an area of 809,952 km² doesn't sound too unreasonable.
WRONG!
Sydney Trains would rather make commuters pay 1.4% for the privilege of paying for fares. If there was ever a way to corporately punch your own customers in the face and to discourage them, this is it.
Sydney Trains are now helpfully being punished by the rag-tag ruffians, hooligans, bogans, and ne'er-do'wells at Blacktown Station, with them leapfrogging the ticket barriers on a very regular basis. If you are a person for whom morality is optional, then stealing from a faceless corporation which in this instance refuses to interact with you, seems like a rational option.
The threat of fining people by NSW Transport Officers seems like a bit of applied game theory.
If NSW Transport Officers or the Police detect that you have committed the offence of travelling on trains and buses without a valid ticket, they they will issue a fine of $200. In my case, as NSW Transport Officers and Police are likely to check Opal Cards at least twice per week, then this fine is not worth the effort. However, if you can reliably ride the trains without a valid fare, for more than a month, then a fine of $200 is less than the $50/week multiplied by four for a month. Remember a fine is little more than a punitive price. A fine is still ultimately only a tax that can be paid for; which when applied rationally might actually be more cost effective. It should not be. That is stupid.
Of course I also realise that this might very well be one of those things like the North West Metro which doesn't connect Tallawong to Schofields because the other end went to the then Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian's electorate and she didn't want to have her electorate infected with poors, or the fact that it took almost 30 years of petitioning to get Doonside Railway Station lift access, but it seems to me that my complaint is view as being silly.
All top up machines have card readers that take eftpos/Visa/MasterCard, and your debit card will be one of these networks. Even if it doesn't have a chip, you can swipe. If it *still* doesn't work, it sounds like there's an issue with your card of some kind.
- Name Withheld, Twitter, 30th Oct 2023
Take note of the use of the word "all" in this reply to me on Twitter. The word "All" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Obviously I have a different definition of "all" to this person, as I would have used the words "practically none". When I begin my journey on a Monday morning, there are zero places that I can pay for my weekly fare at either Marayong or Blacktown. I actually have to have already completed a journey to Town Hall to be able to pay.
Town Hall Station which suffers under the traffic loads that it must carry in the evenings, should be a place where there are lots of ticket machines. As it currently stands, there are but four ticket machines at the station. Two of these machines are Card Only and as before "Card Only" is a misnomer as "Card Only" actually only means AMEX, MasterCard and VISA, only one accepts coins (which doesn't accept EFTPOS), and only one machine accepts EFTPOS as a form of payment.
The curious thing about the machine on the right hand side in the photograph above, is that although it says that it accepts EFTPOS as a form of payment, it does not. The label is actually a leftover from when this machine used to accept EFTPOS and coins.
The one machine which accepts EFTPOS as a form of payment, is on the western side of the ticket hall; which is on the other side of the ticket hall which is the one machine which accepts cash. Even then, this appears to be a legacy machine which will likely be replaced with the current machine, once it has ceased to be in service. As Sydney Trains very much lack the technical staff to be able to service these machines any more, the rollout program is one of replacement and not repair.
Here's the punchline to this whole sad joke. When Sydney Trains says that it wants feedback, including if you openly tell them that due to their own policies of making it so hard to pay for fares that people will actively steal from them, their response was thus:
Hello,
Thank you for your enquiry to Transport for NSW.
There are now multiple options to top up so that you are always ready to travel.
You can top up:
• on this site
• via the Opal website
• via the Opal Travel app
• over the counter at Opal retailers. Find a location on the Opal retailers map
• using one of the Opal top up machines available at selected stations, stops and wharves
• at Sydney Airport stations, however a $35 minimum top up applies
• at Transport Customer Service Centres
• at selected Service NSW Centres
When you top up online or via the Opal Travel app, you can access your new balance in as little as 15 minutes for metro, train, ferry and light rail services. Please allow up to 60 minutes for buses.
More information on how to top up your Opal card can be found online.
Yours sincerely,
Transport for NSW
- Transport for NSW, 19th Oct 2023
See the problem here? Their site, the Opal website, and the Opal Travel app, all require AMEX, MasterCard, and VISA. Most "of the Opal top up machines available at selected stations, stops and wharves" all require AMEX, MasterCard, and VISA. Sydney Airport stations, Transport Customer Service Centres, and selected Service NSW Centres, are not my local railway station at 7 am in the morning, are they?! And "Over the counter at Opal retailers" is also impossible at 7 am in the morning at m,y local railway station.
Transport for NSW either didn't read my email, or didn't think about it, or else the person at the other end was by demonstration too stupid to understand what it means.
Herein lies the problem. I like an absolute fool, think that public transport should be free as a public service, in which case there is no need for ticket barriers at all. However, if there are to be fares for travel (which is still reasonable and rational) then there should at least be a reasonable ability for people to pay their fares. Having a credit card is not something which is either available to all, nor something which is even desirable. Imposing the use of credit cards as the only acceptable method of payment either seems myopic or discriminatory to me.
I note that the rate of fare evasion rate on the London Underground is 2%. In Sydney, the rate of fare evasion rate is closer to 8%. Public transport fare evaders cost New South Wales about $120 million a year, and an increase in disrespect for government combined with what appears to be a deliberate a lack of human interaction, makes fare evasion more of a victimless offence to the public. I suspect that we have almost reached the point where Sydney Trains are passively encouraging civil disobedience.
Good luck to them?
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