ajobbins: So....AT claims that Snapper was slowing things down, but now Snapper are out, things seem to be going slower and costing even more money?
At the time it was made to sound like Thales was all ready to go.....
It sounds more like arguments over who will own the readers on the buses (as opposed to fixed equipment on AT properties for trains/ferries). Under the old agreement my understanding was that each bus company would buy their own from an approved list, AT to speed it up slightly with all the messing around wanted to buy them (I assume cheaper per unit) out of a new budget and lease-to-own them with the bus companies.
What it sounds like is that Auckland Council said "Here is a fifth of what you need, make it do something" which is what we've landed on now.
I can see why Auckland Transport would want to do what they've done, there is a big win to making sure everything is the same, but I do think it's disappointing that they demanded more money for it, like you I was under the impression that all these little bits were sorted. Either way, I've seen the equipment on the Northern Express obviously before the 'closed trial' started as the driver's console was showing errors such as "EOD processes not performed for X days" and red screens et al, but they did look pretty nice, and hopefully worth the wait.
Also as a side note, why didn't they do a public trial on the City Circuit, they are 0-value transactions, they could have had both side by side, and monitored the performance quite nicely before a private trial. (my 10c)
ajobbins: So....AT claims that Snapper was slowing things down, but now Snapper are out, things seem to be going slower and costing even more money?
At the time it was made to sound like Thales was all ready to go.....
Thales were never supplying the bus terminals. They were a combination of Snapper terminals for the NZ bus fleet however all the other bus companies were had opted for a different brand of terminal (the name of the manufacturer excapes me at present). These other terminals were not able to be made to work either, and were canned at the same time as Snapper as they hadn't even been ordered from the manufacturer due to delays in finalising some of the specs.
A new contract was then given to Thales to supply terminals for all buses.
ajobbins: So....AT claims that Snapper was slowing things down, but now Snapper are out, things seem to be going slower and costing even more money?
At the time it was made to sound like Thales was all ready to go.....
Thales were never supplying the bus terminals. They were a combination of Snapper terminals for the NZ bus fleet however all the other bus companies were had opted for a different brand of terminal (the name of the manufacturer excapes me at present). These other terminals were not able to be made to work either, and were canned at the same time as Snapper as they hadn't even been ordered from the manufacturer due to delays in finalising some of the specs.
A new contract was then given to Thales to supply terminals for all buses.
It was the Wayfarer ones (Parkeon brand), who have supplied the majority of bus terminals in Auckland pre-Snapper - I think even NZ Bus had the Parkeon/Wayfarer terminals.
Edit: I don't recall that the Parkeon contract was cancelled due to failure to integrate, I was under the impression that it was just decided that it as easier to buy the bulk needed from Thales. (My memory may be failing me)
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