Would you buy a Geekzone-branded Snapper card?

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Would you buy a Geekzone-branded Snapper card?

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#432404 28-Jan-2011 20:27

BigHammer:
oxnsox: Would a GZ Snapper card? make your a Subscriber???

Perhaps, but the card will cost you $70-$80 instead of the unbranded at $20. The subscription would last a year.

oxnsox:
Shock: ....(edit)..... Just like a keyring from my thai boxing gym gets me discounts at retailers over any normal keyring.

No I think thats cause they don't want a beating... ;)

You may well be right with that statement!

We are not a gang. Or are we ;P

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old3eyes

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#432412 28-Jan-2011 20:37

sbiddle:
old3eyes:
freitasm: It is a contactless payment. You load some money onto it then just wave it in front of the reader to pay the amount on the display.

First you don't load that much on a card - there's a limit. If you lose it you are protected to that amount, and wouldn't be any different of losing cash out of your pocket.

It's faster than a bank card, since there's no PIN and it's a simple operation.

I seem to remember some from Wellywood saying that on a bus you had to swipe when you got and and then again when you got off. Is this correct??

Yip.

This is pretty much the standard way around the world of paying for transport with any form of smart or integrated ticketing. While it seems like it's a hassle it becomes very much the norm after a while!

The only time I've ever seen this type of swipe on and swipe off is on train system as you enter and exit train stations. Buses and trams it always swipe on. Swipe on/off must be a real pain in the but when the bus is full with everyone try to get to the exit and swipe their cards and how many don't bother. Sounds like a system only a Kiwi company could come up with.. The systems I saw in Melbourne and Tauranga are way better than this stuff.

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Old3eyes

freitasm

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#432413 28-Jan-2011 20:39

Unless you rather pay a single fare, regardless of the distance? On/off is good because is fair. It's also quicker than handing money or card to the driver.

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sbiddle

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#432416 28-Jan-2011 20:51

old3eyes: The only time I've ever seen this type of swipe on and swipe off is on train system as you enter and exit train stations. Buses and trams it always swipe on. Swipe on/off must be a real pain in the but when the bus is full with everyone try to get to the exit and swipe their cards and how many don't bother. Sounds like a system only a Kiwi company could come up with.. The systems I saw in Melbourne and Tauranga are way better than this stuff.

Melbourne is tag on/tag off - and Myki is regarded as the biggest single IT failure in Australia with talk a $1.2 billion system that faces a very real chance of being canned and replaced, less than a year after it went live!

The advantage of tag on/tag off is that it allows zone based pricing. If you're only tagging on you can only charge a set fare for an entire journey, which is how many Cities operate where you pay $2 for example no matter how far the bus goes. The only way to run a zone based system without tagging off would be to ask the driver for for fare type and then use Snapper for payment which would be exceptionally slow. In London and Hong Kong you pay a specific fare depending on where you board the bus, not where you hop off.

The relality is that delays when existing a bus don't actually exist in reality except for some high use CBD stops. It takes less than 500ms to validate the card so there aren't actually any delays 99% of the time.

knoydart

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#432419 28-Jan-2011 20:54

sbiddle:

All that differs is the way the technology is integrated. Unfortunately in NZ the NZTA and Regional Councils control public transport ticketing which means adoption is very slow. In Wellington for example the Regional Council have made it plainly clear over the years that they see absolutely no value in smart ticketing so have chosen to igore the technology. It's not that Snapper can't replace what's in place, it's that the Regional Council doesn't want to replace outdated paper tickets because it sees no need.

Sadly your right, the GW council has had the speed of a snail going up Mt Everest in implementing it.
They seem to be talking the talk these days but the progress in reality has been well non existent.

One day we'll have fare caps and a decent transfers as they do elsewhere, well hopefully!

codyc1515

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#432420 28-Jan-2011 20:55

sbiddle:
codyc1515:
freitasm:It's faster ... since there's no PIN

That also makes it less secure... People can use RFID readers I do believe.

What do you mean by this?

I mean exactly what I've said, is it not possible to read the card using a RFID reader?

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knoydart

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#432421 28-Jan-2011 20:59

sbiddle: In London and Hong Kong you pay a specific fare depending on where you board the bus, not where you hop off.

London buses are generally flat fare for the oyster card, but the cash fare is almost double, "encouraging" you to go down the plastic route

tomgeeknz

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#432422 28-Jan-2011 21:02

sbiddle:
old3eyes: The only time I've ever seen this type of swipe on and swipe off is on train system as you enter and exit train stations. Buses and trams it always swipe on. Swipe on/off must be a real pain in the but when the bus is full with everyone try to get to the exit and swipe their cards and how many don't bother. Sounds like a system only a Kiwi company could come up with.. The systems I saw in Melbourne and Tauranga are way better than this stuff.

The advantage of tag on/tag off is that it allows zone based pricing. If you're only tagging on you can only charge a set fare for an entire journey, which is how many Cities operate where you pay $2 for example no matter how far the bus goes. The only way to run a zone based system without tagging off would be to ask the driver for for fare type and then use Snapper for payment which would be exceptionally slow.

That is how Christchurch's Metrocard works for journeys outside of the main urban area of Christchurch. 80% of routes are all withing the main urban area so they operate a single fare, tag on system. When you want to go further north, west or south, the driver asks for you destination and selects the correct zone out of the three options, and you tag on only, paying the fare from one of the three zones (Z1 - $2.30, Z2 - $3.30 or Z3 - $4.20 for adults).

sbiddle

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#432431 28-Jan-2011 21:27

codyc1515:
sbiddle:
codyc1515:
freitasm:It's faster ... since there's no PIN

That also makes it less secure... People can use RFID readers I do believe.

What do you mean by this?

I mean exactly what I've said, is it not possible to read the card using a RFID reader?

Snapper is RFID so the answer is yes. If you're inferring that makes Snapper insecure because anybody could read the information then you're totally off the mark. Unless you have access to the encryption keys you can't do anything to the card, and unlike Mifare it hasn't been compromised.

sbiddle

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#432435 28-Jan-2011 21:31

knoydart:
sbiddle: In London and Hong Kong you pay a specific fare depending on where you board the bus, not where you hop off.

London buses are generally flat fare for the oyster card, but the cash fare is almost double, "encouraging" you to go down the plastic route

Yip that was what I explained. Here in NZ we seem to love zone based ticketing and the only way to easily handle that with a smart card is tag on/tag off. Zone based delivers a far fairer ticketing system as it doesn't result in cross subsidies existing where some users subsidise others.

NZ isn't the only place where tag on / tag off exists, I've been to a number of cities who've all got it for smart cards.

nigelj

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#432437 28-Jan-2011 21:33

At the moment, I wouldn't buy one regardless if they come to Auckland before the RWC or after, personally I'm waiting to see what options MAXX/Auckland Transport come up with. I know they've said Snapper will be compatible, but *cough*.....

In addition, I don't know about others, but when I was using a Ritchies proximity smartcard, it ALWAYS stayed in the back of my wallet, even for topping up. Ditto for Brisbane, my Go Card always stayed in it's little holder wallet and the branding never saw the light of day.

That said, this discussion prompted me to look at the Snapper site, and I did notice that the MySnapper application works for all 3 major OS' (Windows/Mac/Linux) which is nice to see...

And as others have said, if there was some special deal as a result of having a GZ branded card, then maybe I'd fork out more, 5-10 bucks, maybe more depending on the deal/if I'd use it etc.

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tomgeeknz

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#432443 28-Jan-2011 21:38

A final point from me, I would suggest that as geeks, a snapper USB would be much more appropriate.

sbiddle

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#432447 28-Jan-2011 21:43

nigelj: At the moment, I wouldn't buy one regardless if they come to Auckland before the RWC or after, personally I'm waiting to see what options MAXX/Auckland Transport come up with. I know they've said Snapper will be compatible, but *cough*.....

Snapper will be compatible. The decisions have very little to do with Auckland since NZTA have the final say - and they seem to have realised how they got the wool pulled over their eyes by ATRA with the Thales deal and have had a massive job over the last year tidying up the mess.