Snapper - Anyone Using It?

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Snapper - Anyone Using It?

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#150685 23-Jul-2008 16:29

I really like this to come to New Zealand soon... some buses accept those RF bus cards, but they seem incredibly slow to scan for some reason (I personally haven't used one, but I've seen people place them and wait for 5 seconds!)

During my travels to Hong Kong, we got a Octopus card. You load them up at a local MTR station, and off you go. They're usually popular with public transport there (MTR, buses and even trams!), butsome retail chains also allow you to use Octopus cards too. Basically when I had to go through the MTR, I would take out my wallet and place it over the yellow scanner, and place it back. Quick, short, simple and fast. It's pretty secure, unless you lost your grip on your wallet.
If you got, say a purse or maybe a bag, it was strong enough to pick it up (if the card was near the bottom of it of course), and it was instantaneous.

The Snapper implementation on the bus looks good (though it's vertical... I would have preferred a 45 degree angle - it's easier to hold it down than upright)

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#150696 23-Jul-2008 17:00

manhinli:
The Snapper implementation on the bus looks good (though it's vertical... I would have preferred a 45 degree angle - it's easier to hold it down than upright)

Somebody I know who was involved with the pilot was telling me they were originally trying to tell people that there was no need to remove the cards and tap them upon exit as even if you had the card on you it would be detected. The problem was there were issues with this failing on occasions and it was better to be safe than sorry.

I know plenty of people have not liked this part of the process, personally I believe it's a shame that the Regional Council are so slow at doing anything about integrated ticketing. They have been talking about it for years and have absolutely nothing to show for it.

Personally I believe that adopting a model similair to Melbourne were you pay $x for a 2 hour period that entitles you to use any form of public transport within the same or multiple zones and would be a fantastic idea for Wellington. This removes the need to have to tap your tag when leaving a bus and works extremely well were people are using multiple methods of public transport.

Nightwyrm

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#150916 24-Jul-2008 12:19

TinyTim:
lugh:As the bank where I work is quite heavily involved in the piloting of Snapper, I've probably got access to some extra information if anyone has any questions (within reason of course).
Why all the delays? There have been rumours the encryuption was broken but I understand that was a different system. Have there been technology problems or is it agent problems or something else?

I can't answer you about the delays as anything I say would be speculation on my part. I have passed your question onto those who may be able to answer though.

In the meantime, it was apparently the MiFare chip that was cracked in Europe whereas Snapper uses the Tmoney microprocessor card that has 128-bit encryption and has not been cracked.

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jhc123

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#150921 24-Jul-2008 12:26

Hey Lugh - any idea when the USB keys will be available to the general public?

The Snapper web site has a link about USB keys being available soon from "Our Banking Partners" but the link goes nowhere (who did the testing on that site!).

Cheers

Nightwyrm

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#150944 24-Jul-2008 13:32

jhc123: Hey Lugh - any idea when the USB keys will be available to the general public?

The Snapper web site has a link about USB keys being available soon from "Our Banking Partners" but the link goes nowhere (who did the testing on that site!).

Cheers

I don't have access to that info; however, there is a Snapper Support phoneline (0800 555 345) that may be able to answer.

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paradoxsm

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#151144 25-Jul-2008 00:21

The cards use the micro based (an infineon chip I believe) 128BIT encryption, not that old 48 bit one that was cracked.

Apart from the different shaped readers, a Korean friend advised me it's the t-money Korean system for sure as the LED meters and o and x responses are exactly as the home system. but just a different shaped rfid unit with a fish.

The chip in the snapper is located at the bottom of the fish's tail from the front (non serial side) of the card.
The loop goes very close to the edge of the card so if you want to poke a hole in it, do it as close to the eye as possible.
ANZ and National bank have been trialling the usb version, I have one of the t-money "dogtags" that came attached to a phone I was given but it seems a bit flimsy, I must swipe this past a reader and see what happens.

Does anyone know if they are the 13Mhz cards?

knoydart

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#151155 25-Jul-2008 06:18

Moving away from USB sticks, I rang the help line 2 weeks ago to see if they were going to introduce a maximum daily charge for transport use - similar to London's travelcard system where you only get charged the price of a day tripper (if you start after 9am weekdays...) or similar no matter how many journeys you make. The lady who answered did not have a clue over the time frame of roll out but said someone would follow up my suggestion and contact me - needless to say, no phone call yet.

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#151176 25-Jul-2008 08:53

knoydart: ...someone would follow up my suggestion and contact me - needless to say, no phone call yet.

Typical New Zealand business strategy. These people don't care about customers. If they hang up and you don't show in the statistics the problem is solved.

"Follow up" calls is something that doesn't exist in their procedures manual, and I doubt she ever took note of your name or number.

I complained to the Wellington City Council about being charged twice in the meter - logged a fault, got a case number, explicitly asking for my money back (that's $8 plus the $1 for SMS payment) and they never returned my call. Of course they are happy to slap a fine on your windshield if you are parked over five minutes after the expiration of your ticket.

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#151178 25-Jul-2008 09:10

It would seem that for a system that is technically fantastic it's been let down by the kiwi "she'll be right" attitude.

The issue of daily maximum charges isn't something for NZ Bus/Snapper - you should really be contracting the Wellington Regional Council as they set pricing for services not the transport operators. I agree there should be a maximum daily charge and it should include all forms of transport allowing seamless transfer between buses and trains but as we know the regional council have been sitting around talking about such issues for years so credit has to at least go to Infratel for rolling out a product on their own that will hopefully force the WRC to actually do something other than promise another "review"

TinyTim

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#151195 25-Jul-2008 09:28

I would hope that the first priority for WRC would be to implement cheap (or free) transfers between buses/trains, like they have in most other places. Buses and trains do already have daily passes, so I assume they will be transferred to Snapper (as fare caps) when it gets going properly.

WRC has tried to implement unified ticketing, and changing sections into zones was a start. But one issue is trains have off-peak fares and buses don't. It makes sense to introduce off-peak fares for buses - Snapper will make this a lot easier than the paper concession tickets - but it would have to be negotiated when WRC renews the bus contracts with NZBus et al.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes the trains to get Snapper. I assume they won't do it unless pushed by WRC, who has the motivation to make ticketing seamless, but doesn't have anything to do with Snapper.

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#151203 25-Jul-2008 09:41

TinyTim:
I would hope that the first priority for WRC would be to implement cheap (or free) transfers between buses/trains, like they have in most other places. Buses and trains do already have daily passes, so I assume they will be transferred to Snapper (as fare caps) when it gets going properly.

WRC has tried to implement unified ticketing, and changing sections into zones was a start. But one issue is trains have off-peak fares and buses don't. It makes sense to introduce off-peak fares for buses - Snapper will make this a lot easier than the paper concession tickets - but it would have to be negotiated when WRC renews the bus contracts with NZBus et al.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes the trains to get Snapper. I assume they won't do it unless pushed by WRC, who has the motivation to make ticketing seamless, but doesn't have anything to do with Snapper.

I personally think the WRC have been backed into a corner with Snapper and will have no choice but to use it for trains as well. They spent so long talking about a unified ticketing solution and doing nothing so somebody (Infratel in this case) has come along and deployed the system. WRC don't like the fact that the system is owned by a company who has a contract for the services rather than being owned by them or being independent but the reality is had they not sat around doing nothing but talking they may not have found themselves in the situation they are in.

The issue with trains is how it would be implimented. I really like having guards on trains and there once you get rid of these you have the problems of fare evasion. Obviously turnstyles are logical at Wgtn so you would get no evasion for people travelling to or from Wellington but evasion on other trips becomes an obvious issue since manned stations with turnstyles are simply not cost effective in Wellington. You then need to have ticket inspectors to monitor people and with an electronic system (rather than paper based tickets) face an issue of requiring some form of mobile PC/reader to quickly verify that a person who does have a Snapper card has infact validated this when they board the train. This means added technology which all costs money!

We have a fantastic product in Snapper, it will certainly be interesting to see where we are in 5 years time.

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#151204 25-Jul-2008 09:43

TinyTim:It will be interesting to see how long it takes the trains to get Snapper. I assume they won't do it unless pushed by WRC, who has the motivation to make ticketing seamless, but doesn't have anything to do with Snapper.

At least there will only be one train operator to deal with. London's Oyster card has the farcical situation where some rail routes accept Oyster and others don't.

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#151222 25-Jul-2008 10:44

sbiddle:
The issue with trains is how it would be implimented. I really like having guards on trains and there once you get rid of these you have the problems of fare evasion. Obviously turnstyles are logical at Wgtn so you would get no evasion for people travelling to or from Wellington but evasion on other trips becomes an obvious issue since manned stations with turnstyles are simply not cost effective in Wellington. You then need to have ticket inspectors to monitor people and with an electronic system (rather than paper based tickets) face an issue of requiring some form of mobile PC/reader to quickly verify that a person who does have a Snapper card has infact validated this when they board the train. This means added technology which all costs money!

We have a fantastic product in Snapper, it will certainly be interesting to see where we are in 5 years time.

Agreed that train trips into wellington and between other stations are the issue, one way around it may be to move to an honesty based system, where the stations have readers that allow travellers to tag on, but there is no turnstyles as such, when commuters arrive at the platform they tag on, and tag off when they alight at their final station, you have guards on the trains but they generally do not check snappers ( just sell cash fares etc), BUT, every so often they turn up with a snapper reader and ask to see *all* tickets, No tick = $150 dollar instant fine and ejection at the next stop,

A number of places use a "severe fine/ no turn style" type system, so it is not totally out of the box,

The biggest issue is that while many of the bus companies have gone to at least half way house with varients of a stored value card, the trains are still a totally paper based ticket system.

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#151228 25-Jul-2008 10:59

Just like the OP, I ordered mine at the start of the week. The confirmation screen told me I would have my card in 3 working days (That would be today) however nothing has arrived, and when I log into their website it says Card Number has not yet been assigned, and shows the balance as $0.00 although I loaded $20.00 when purchasing the card. Hmmm

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#151238 25-Jul-2008 11:29

adamj: Just like the OP, I ordered mine at the start of the week. The confirmation screen told me I would have my card in 3 working days (That would be today) however nothing has arrived, and when I log into their website it says Card Number has not yet been assigned, and shows the balance as $0.00 although I loaded $20.00 when purchasing the card. Hmmm

I ordered mine on Tuesday and haven't got it yet (not sure whether the postie's been today or not), but I think what they actually mean is that they will dispatch the card within three days, which means that you could be waiting four or five days if you allow for the postage delay.

With regard to the card balance, I was under the impression that you have to receive and register the card before you can get any information from the online portal but I could be wrong on this point.

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