AT Hop card transaction update time...

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simon14

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# 251134 10-Jun-2019 13:37

I topped up my AT Hop card on Saturday.

On Monday morning, i went to use it but there was no credit as the transaction had not completed.

AT Hop state that in 98% of cases, the transaction should complete within 24 hours, however it may take up to 72 hours.

If you top up at a bus station, the funds are added instantly.

So why on earth arn't the funds added instantly when topping up online via credit card?

I initially thought it was to do with the time it takes to update the network to confirm your account had credit, however that is done instantly when topping up at the bus stop, so i don't see why it can take up to 3 days to process the payment online.

Typical council process....

PeterReader

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# 2255259 10-Jun-2019 13:37

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# 2255273 10-Jun-2019 13:48

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Don't get me started with AT....... but yes, its been an ongoing question. Funny thing is, they can take money off your card in 0.5s flat, but to get it back is at least a weeks wait.

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mkissin

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# 2255275 10-Jun-2019 13:49

The problem is that the funds are stored on your Hop card, and have to get there somehow.

When you top up online, that transaction has to propagate out to each of the terminals. When you tap on, the terminal notices that you have a credit and adds it to your card. If the terminal you tap on to doesn't have your credit in its list then it won't happen. The main issue is with the terminals on buses, as I think those only update the transaction list once a day. If you add the transaction and tap on at a terminal connected to the network then it can happen instantly.

Yes, it's very annoying and I've been bitten by it several times, to the point of having several top-ups expire and needing to have them refunded under the old system.

simon14

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# 2255280 10-Jun-2019 13:59

I still don't understand how the terminal at the bus station can update the entire bus network instantly, yet the terminal we use to top up online can take 3 days?

sbiddle

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# 2255287 10-Jun-2019 14:07

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simon14:

I topped up my AT Hop card on Saturday.

On Monday morning, i went to use it but there was no credit as the transaction had not completed.

AT Hop state that in 98% of cases, the transaction should complete within 24 hours, however it may take up to 72 hours.

If you top up at a bus station, the funds are added instantly.

So why on earth arn't the funds added instantly when topping up online via credit card?

I initially thought it was to do with the time it takes to update the network to confirm your account had credit, however that is done instantly when topping up at the bus stop, so i don't see why it can take up to 3 days to process the payment online.

Typical council process....

HOP (like virtually all public transport ticketing solutions) is a loaded value card and your balance is stored on the card. It's not instantly available on your card when you top it up online because there is no physical way for that balance to magically go from the Internet to your card which is sitting in your wallet.

When you top up online the topup value is sent to terminals on the network so when you tag on at a terminal it can be applied. As train and ferry terminals are connected in realtime this means the topup value can be transferred almost immediately to the terminals so when you tag on it can be applied.

Buses don't have real-time connectivity, and there are significantly challenges with doing this which why it's very rare anywhere in the world. Each day when the bus returns to the depot transactions are uploaded via WiFi and new instructions for cards (such as topups, blocking a card and so on) are downloaded to the terminals.

All of this is explained pretty well on the AT website, especially in light of the massive media attention this issue got a couple of years ago.

noroad

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# 2255288 10-Jun-2019 14:07

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mkissin:

The problem is that the funds are stored on your Hop card, and have to get there somehow.

When you top up online, that transaction has to propagate out to each of the terminals. When you tap on, the terminal notices that you have a credit and adds it to your card. If the terminal you tap on to doesn't have your credit in its list then it won't happen. The main issue is with the terminals on buses, as I think those only update the transaction list once a day. If you add the transaction and tap on at a terminal connected to the network then it can happen instantly.

Yes, it's very annoying and I've been bitten by it several times, to the point of having several top-ups expire and needing to have them refunded under the old system.

Yea, its a horrific system. So the way I understand it (I could be totally wrong!), all the bus terminals get a batch list off all the top ups overnight (or within network range of base) so if you topped up online that will not have got to a terminal to push that to your card when you tap on the same day (allowing extra for non-processing days/times). If you top up at the bus station terminal then it can instantly push it to your card. With such a system of course the file with all the pending top up's can only be so big as it has to go to every terminal until its been confirmed pushed to the card, hence the need to expire top up's that have not been "redeemed" to a card.

It's beyond me how AT paid so much for such a system, yes it can operate without realtime data access to the terminals, which would have been fantastic in the 1G (analogue)/2G mobile days but its really pretty poor in today's real-time connected world.

sbiddle

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# 2255289 10-Jun-2019 14:08

simon14:

I still don't understand how the terminal at the bus station can update the entire bus network instantly

it doesn't.

sbiddle

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# 2255290 10-Jun-2019 14:09

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noroad:

It's beyond me how AT paid so much for such a system, yes it can operate without realtime data access to the terminals, which would have been fantastic in the 1G (analogue)/2G mobile days but its really pretty poor in today's real-time connected world.

They could have had Snapper..😄

I top up my Snapper card by opening the Snapper app, selecting top up, and holding my Snapper card onto the back of my Android phone which updates the balance on the card in real time.