Does AT Hop have the worst website in the world?

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Does AT Hop have the worst website in the world?

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#1949321 31-Jan-2018 14:40

kryptonjohn:

Sam91:

kryptonjohn:

It would be nice if they just had a reliable system that could assure you that as you have made an online topup that yes, your child will be able to get on the bus tomorrow morning and won't be left on the side of the road.

Just use the auto top-up system and you won't have that issue.

I do but it doesn't push the value onto the card so you don't "see it" until tagged at a reader (and the reader on the bus might not have been uploaded with the topup so it still doesn't become usable). An NFC push completes the whole process in one uninterruptable process/

Ah ok, my bad. I have mine set to top up $20 when the balance drops below $20, so I never have any issues.

kryptonjohn

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#1949323 31-Jan-2018 14:43

Yep same (kids cards add $10 when balance drops below $10) - so there's enough of a buffer even if there's a delay coming through.

If the million cards out there are all averaging $15 credit that's a nice $15 million float for AT to sit on!

allan

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#1949341 31-Jan-2018 15:08

sbiddle:

allan:

My other half has reached the "golden age" and I was surprised to discover that in Wellington they don't track in any way the number of Gold Card carrying passengers on buses (not sure about trains). Apparently you just wave the card at the driver and on you get. Must make it really difficult to know what real passenger loadings are like.

By contrast, when she made a trip to Auckland recently, she had to purchase a HOP card, load it with nominal amount and register the Gold Card against it. At least they know how many Gold card concessions they are dealing with.

Gold card usage is tracked. The driver presses a button on his operator panel for gold card passengers when they board. They do obviously miss tracking full usage (tag on / tag off location) with this, so it'll be interesting to see if this changes come July.

Interesting. I'll tell her to watch out for the button press.

MikeAqua

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#1949414 31-Jan-2018 15:43

sbiddle:

myki is still regarded as a massive failure though - while it's working relatively well now you have to consider it was $500 million over budget and 3 years late to enter service despite Melbourne having one of the simplest public transport charging systems in the world - two zones (reduced from 3 for myki) and all fares being valid for 2 hours across the public transport network. Even when it was introduced it was plagued with issues and was on the verge of being dumped years after the introduction.

Melbourne and Sydney are both moving to support tokenisation this year and introducing credit card support as part of that. I'm not sure that's going to be viable in NZ until interchange rates are cut, but that doesn't seem to be a priority for the Government at this stage.

Not denying those issues, but using myki is easy. It's easy to get a skewed perspective when you visit a place.

Mike

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#1949445 31-Jan-2018 15:56

kryptonjohn:

Yep same (kids cards add $10 when balance drops below $10) - so there's enough of a buffer even if there's a delay coming through.

If the million cards out there are all averaging $15 credit that's a nice $15 million float for AT to sit on!

The "float" was $16 million on 30 June 2017, its been rinsing steadily as the number of HOP cards grow....

MikeAqua

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#1949475 31-Jan-2018 16:11

sbiddle:

Gold card usage is tracked. The driver presses a button on his operator panel for gold card passengers when they board. They do obviously miss tracking full usage (tag on / tag off location) with this, so it'll be interesting to see if this changes come July.

What's happening in July?

Mike

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allan

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#1949509 31-Jan-2018 17:10

MikeAqua:

sbiddle:

Gold card usage is tracked. The driver presses a button on his operator panel for gold card passengers when they board. They do obviously miss tracking full usage (tag on / tag off location) with this, so it'll be interesting to see if this changes come July.

What's happening in July?

New bus contracts, with a significant change in providers.

KiwiSurfer

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#1949512 31-Jan-2018 17:16

As someone who takes around 500-1000 PT trips a year I find AT Hop to be very good. They had a rocky start of which I have personal experience. However they have improved over the last few years to service levels comparable with other systems overseas. It's no surprise that all of the limitations AT Hop has is common to other system given AT Hop is a Mifare system under the hood, the same system used in over 100+ PT systems around the world.

I think a lot of people have rose-tinted glasses about overseas systems. I'll have people tell me a certain system does things better than AT and usually my research finds the system they refer to is also built on Mifare and suffers from the same issues. I'm seeing some examples of that in this thread already, some of which @sbiddle has responded to already.

I think AT's trouble is they've tried to implement features that are difficult to do well (and these are also features overseas systems have wisely avoided implementing). If I was AT I would dump automatic and online top-ops and only support kiosk/counter top-ups. Bingo, 90% of all their bad press gone I would say.

I frequently lose cards (typically 1–2 cards a year to my shame) and all I've had to do is (1) buy a new card and (2) request a balance transfer (at some places you can do that the same time as buying a new card). In every case the request has been processed overnight and applied to my card the next time I tag on.

I've had a few incorrect transactions in the entire time AT Hop has been in operation (probably 1 in every 1000 trips or so and getting better each year). Simple emails to the AT helpdesk result in the transaction reversed (1) within days and (2) without dispute. Try achieving that sort of turnaround that with banks and other payment providers...

I never pay any attention to the balance on the website as AT only gets the transactions in batches when vehicles return to the depot at the end of the day. It's really quite unfair to expect AT to act on data they won't have access to for quite some time after the transaction has been completed. Visa, MasterCard and Amex balances are often out of sync due to delayed posting, unnecessary/excessive holds, off-line transactions not yet processed, etc. It's par for the course for card transactions—and Mifare being stored value makes this issue look worse than it really is.

All AT Hop machines tell you the actual stored value balance every time you tag on/off. I just keep an eye when I tag off and I'll go and top-up by $50 whenever the balance falls below $20. That usually lasts me a good number of trips before I have to top-up again.

At the end of the day the systems works for you as long as you only do counter/kiosk top-ups and keep track of your balance at the time you tag on/off. Doing card-not-present transactions just complicates matters (and is the reason behind many if not most complaints) and that option should be withdrawn.

wsnz

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#1949537 31-Jan-2018 17:53

MikeAqua:

I hope the system Auckland uses is never rolled out nationwide.

The back-end Thales system is to be integrated into seven other regional transport operators within the next 12 months as part of the new ticketing system currently being negotiated. Cards issued by any member of the seven regions involved will be able to be used in any other member's region. Discussions are currently underway will other regions to join the group, which could see Auckland as the lone standout.

wsnz

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#1949541 31-Jan-2018 17:57

allan:

New bus contracts, with a significant change in providers.

FYI: For those that don't realise the transport-related significance of July, public transport was deregulated on 1 Jul 1991 and hence why major changes routinely occur on that date.

xpd

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#1949542 31-Jan-2018 17:58

KiwiSurfer:

I've had a few incorrect transactions in the entire time AT Hop has been in operation (probably 1 in every 1000 trips or so and getting better each year). Simple emails to the AT helpdesk result in the transaction reversed (1) within days and (2) without dispute. Try achieving that sort of turnaround that with banks and other payment providers...

They must have you on some premium user list :)

I've literally had to resort to quoting the law to them and advised next contact will be from my lawyer to get their screw ups sorted.

XPD / Gavin

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stevenk

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#1949590 31-Jan-2018 19:19

MikeAqua:

sbiddle:

myki is still regarded as a massive failure though - while it's working relatively well now you have to consider it was $500 million over budget and 3 years late to enter service despite Melbourne having one of the simplest public transport charging systems in the world - two zones (reduced from 3 for myki) and all fares being valid for 2 hours across the public transport network. Even when it was introduced it was plagued with issues and was on the verge of being dumped years after the introduction.

Melbourne and Sydney are both moving to support tokenisation this year and introducing credit card support as part of that. I'm not sure that's going to be viable in NZ until interchange rates are cut, but that doesn't seem to be a priority for the Government at this stage.

Not denying those issues, but using myki is easy. It's easy to get a skewed perspective when you visit a place.

Reducing Melbourne from three fare zones to two predates Myki by several years. It coincided with the extension of the #86 tram route to Bundoora in the outer northern suburbs, being the only part of the tram network in zone 3. Changing the zone structure meant that changes didn't have to be made to the Metcard system for the trams, and coincidentally for Myki, means that you don't need to touch off on most tram journeys.

The problems with the public perception of Myki comes from a few different things; as mentioned, the original implementation was far more drawn out and expensive than it should have been, due at least in part to it having been built from scratch, rather than adapting a system that was in use elsewhere. In addition, the old Metcard system was faster to use, provided single trip tickets (which Myki does not, though for political rather than technical reasons) and had card top-up facilities on trams, which Myki does not.

However, the system does work well once you get used to the idea that you need a Myki and can't just bowl up at a railway station or a bus stop and buy a ticket for a single trip. The performance issues with the card readers are being addressed, and Myki has since been rolled out to V/Line as well, which means that the system is handling trips out as far as Bendigo (in zone 13), Ballarat, Seymour, Traralgon and Geelong, instead of only zone 1 and 2 for Melbourne, and single trips that can be either 2 or 3 hours long, depending on where you touch on and off.

jonherries

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#1949665 31-Jan-2018 20:27

Interesting thread, having re-adopted a snapper card in the last week it seems to still work ok, but appears to have stagnated over the years.

There are a couple of user experience things which annoy me with Snapper and they have been discussed here (eg. topping up and balance accuracy/maintenance).

Wondering if now that iphones have an NFC chip included (and many android devices have for sometime) for apple pay and in the latest rev. a more flexible programmeable interface, will phones supplant stored value cards (and pay wave)?

Jon

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#1949718 31-Jan-2018 21:15

jonherries: Interesting thread, having re-adopted a snapper card in the last week it seems to still work ok, but appears to have stagnated over the years.

There are a couple of user experience things which annoy me with Snapper and they have been discussed here (eg. topping up and balance accuracy/maintenance).

Wondering if now that iphones have an NFC chip included (and many android devices have for sometime) for apple pay and in the latest rev. a more flexible programmeable interface, will phones supplant stored value cards (and pay wave)?

Jon

Topping up Snappier is the easiest thing ever - all you need is a NFC Android phone and it's done in real time.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what Apple really open up in iOS11 going forward. Right now nobody is going to be able to build a payment platform with it, but this may change going forward.

allan

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#1949753 31-Jan-2018 22:18

jonherries: Interesting thread, having re-adopted a snapper card in the last week it seems to still work ok, but appears to have stagnated over the years.

There are a couple of user experience things which annoy me with Snapper and they have been discussed here (eg. topping up and balance accuracy/maintenance).

Wondering if now that iphones have an NFC chip included (and many android devices have for sometime) for apple pay and in the latest rev. a more flexible programmeable interface, will phones supplant stored value cards (and pay wave)?

Jon

Actually I've never had any issues with Snapper. Top-ups via NFC on a mobile (Android) are a breeze and the only accuracy issue was self induced. Forgot to swipe off once

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