I suspect the discount will decline again as it is now a captive market (other forms of tickets have been phased out). It’s a crap system and Infratil are a pretty useless company. Keep them out of Auckland.

Mr Szikszai – please leave Auckland alone. Your company has failed in the tendering process – TWICE. Now leave it be and go waste money on a fifth rate airport in Europe.

I’m employed by Snapper. That is the entity that I have responsibility for. Frankly I just don’t know about any other company’s political donations.

Snapper has not made any political donations. Period. You’ll also note that the funding proposed by NZTA is conditional. And that the NZTA is quite clear there is room for the private sector in this industry.

http://www.nzta.govt.nz/newsroom/info/441/index.html

As for your point regarding comparison with Thales it can’t be answered for the simple reason they do not have a system in place in NZ.We should be able to make that comparison sometime in 2012 from what I understand.

@Benjamin

Looks like you are after a range of information. Drop me a line on miki.szikszai@snapper.co.nz and we can get what we can to you

thank you for the unexpected compliment. I was disappointed that a reply was not forthcoming at the regularity you established for my view, against a custom of those officials taken to task in blog forum, or through other email missive distribution.

I am in judicial review proceedings with WCC about putting buses through Manners Mall. This is now with the Supreme Court. I am under a Court order not to publish, as I would otherwise do, those documents I file in the proceedings. The information higher in the thread is relative to the application but not the SC document. It identifies that there is proof that the decision on Manners Mall is corrupt as predetermined from a SPC October 08 meeting; with the present consultative procedure a sham; the communication between Council and the ordinary public shameful and for the disrespect of this public (wallet) generally worthy of a very significant response from that public. A Council budget was written around a broadly as integrated parties’ approved agreement, prior to formal or statutory consultation (retrospectively).

I am in several (miscellaneous) Court proceedings with others planned and still to be filed. I elected not to include the WCC integrated parties into the proceedings because there was more work in coordinating arguments against them than I could handle within the period necessary to maintain a credible prosecution against the WCC. This does not mean that there was no case to answer, but more that I have had little time to research the relationships between public and private interests (Infratil/NZ Bus) & (now) Snapper. I am, however, interested in stopping theft. I appreciate your reply and recognise that the onus is on me by claim, to prove theft, so issue no exception for or from any of your present commentary.

The matter here I question, that is of law in the proceedings, is whether or not any investment in Snapper has been specifically focused at marketing on the Golden Mile?

“The last time I looked, New Zealand was a democracy. That means individuals have a right to express themselves. It’s called free speech. When there are dissenting views, it’s called debate. Debate is healthy in a democratic society. I’ll continue to express myself regardless of your threats.”

I have no problem with you expressing your opinions on this blog, someone such as myself is very fond of Section 14 of the Bill of Rights what I do have a problem with is you and your company lobbying politicans you’re company has given MONEY to, to try and overturn a DEMOCRATIC decision, made three times now…

I’d also appreciate it if you’d read my posts I used the words “I suggest” I fail to see how that is a threat…

On points 1 and 2 a little birdie has told me there will be an ongoing $6.5 million dollar subsidy, far superior in quality to the operating subsidies about 10 times that paid to your sister company NZ Bus, who get to keep all the profits off commercial routes while being subsidised for non-commercial ones…

On point 3 you’ve failed again to show why people won’t vote with their wallets for the superior Thales system, I guess because there is no answer for that…

Sorry – been in a Board Meeting this afternoon. We make available our T’s and C’s online and at point of sale in the user guide that comes with every Snapper card. They can be checked by the customer prior to purchase as the packages are not in fact sealed. We have spent a lot of time with the Privacy Commissioner and the Commerce Commission making sure we are packaging and communicating our services appropriately.

We’d respectfully disagree that the act of charging a Penalty fare is an act of theft.

I like the way your brain works though!

Miki

Additionally, and I do apologise for using a word that would appear out of context as ‘independent’ and not as you corrected ’separately’, but I think I used it correctly as being an independent fund. This means in my view that it is money that should in some sense be paid back. I realise from your answer that the PT gains the return – but do not believe that this factor would exempt Snapper from being accomplice and the principal in such an act of theft.

Respectfully,
Benjamin Easton
LAOS New Zealand.

Thank you again. What measures or provisions are in place to advise the customer prior to purchasing the Snapper card that the card will be deducted a full fare if the customer does not tag off? In the research of the card, where there is an audio facility in place that activates relative to the amount on the card, if low, did Snapper establish whether or not this audio facility was in breach of privacy?

Misunderstood the question – yes the amount is calculated separately.

It’s not our call to determine whether Snapper is compulsory for bus use. Personally, I am all in favour of choice. People will choose whether to use cash, tokens, smartcards or beads and fine cloth for transactions – just as they have since civilisations started springing up in Mesopotamia.

Snapper’s challenge is simple – be the best we can be, design for customers, and people will make that choice everyday.

Miki

Additionally I have some concern with the marketing where the ‘cashless society’ would appear to be a focus in the strategy. I have a colleague making a submission today with the Wellington City Council on the revocation of Manners Mall and he has a concern directed that the ticketing system may become compulsory for bus use – is this a regime that has been considered at all by your company?

When a customer does not tag off, they are charged full fare to the end of the line. This money (as with all the fares) goes to the PT operator where the penalty was incurred.

If the penalty was incurred as a result of a faulty card or equipment, we refund it to the customer.

Hope that helps.

The last time I looked, New Zealand was a democracy. That means individuals have a right to express themselves. It’s called free speech. When there are dissenting views, it’s called debate. Debate is healthy in a democratic society. I’ll continue to express myself regardless of your threats.

You might note that I have only talked about Snapper in this debate, and haven’t compared Snapper to Thales or any other provider.It’s a bit hard for anyone to do that when they are not active in the NZ market with a product.

Some points about your comments

1. Check out Oyster, Octopus and the OV chipkaart in the Netherlands. Closer to home, Brisbane and Perth. The authorities in these jurisdictions charge for the card. Some require a minimum deposit as well. The OV chipkaart has a 7.50 euro cost and a 10 euro replacement charge. $10 NZD is a cost that we find customers willing to pay once they weigh up the benefits.

2. Who knows what NZTA and ARTA will in fact subsidise? They started off with full subsidies of all equipment. Our latest advice is that PT operators will now have to fund their own equipment and that NZTA are directly promoting a strategy that will lead to a range of card issuers who will want to charge for cards. Interestingly ECAN have given away cards in Christchurch. They have given away 400,000 of them. Less than 20% are in active use. That’s a whole heap of money that rate-payers have spent that they simply don’t need to – and could have been used to provide more frequent services instead.

3. In terms of people voting with their wallets – at its peak there were about 25,000 10 trip card holders in Wellington at any one time. We have almost 4 times that number who are able to use public transport on a casual basis everyday. They buy the card, see the benefits and use the system. That’s voting with your wallet.

Miki

Respectfully,
Benjamin Easton
LAOS New Zealand

Interent reloads are not free, you first have to buy a special adapter costing $25 dollars, meaning 100 uses are required before it’s “free”…

All the advantages you claim can and most likely will be introduced on a Thales system, to be perfectly honest they’ve introduced a hundred cards around the world and have more experience integrating uses, one of the reasons your tender has lost three times…

By charging $10 for the card and 25c for a top up you are indirectly discouraging people to transfer and transferring is a hassle, making it easy is the main reason behind an integrated card, we shouldn’t punish people for doing this as it it something we want them to do – travel further by public transport, you don’t really want people using other companies services because they might like them better and stay with them in future, understandable but not really that good for Auckland’s public transport (the bus lockout showed how concerned Infratil is about that eh..?) the top up fees are about lining your pockets forever going forward…

The NZTA and ARTA are going to subsidise the cards and their top ups, it is probably the best public transport subsidy we can make… Because the Thales system is less likely to need ongoing overseas involvement (unlike your system) it will have lower operating costs…

You say people are voting with their wallets what evidence do you have people won’t use a Thales card in greater numbers than yours, last time I checked people tend to use a better product more, could this be why you’re trying so hard to kill it..?

For all the reasons above, your tender has been beaten three times, when you add in the potential conflict of interest and Infratil’s disdain for Auckland during the bus lockout, I suggest you give up with this pathetic lobbying effort because if this decision is overturned I and others are going to raise 7 kinds of holy hell at moneying influencing democratic (and correct I might add) decisions…

As for the use of the Snapper system for small purchases – seems logical if it leads to more non-transport derived income for the system i.e. if people maintain higher balances then there’s more interest income and the system needs less funding from the taxpayer and/or end user (except their lost potential interest income).

Your multi-vendor-in-competition idea is pretty much what I proposed a couple of hours ago. It means that government would be a setter of standards and a regulator, rather than an operator of e-cash (or e-cash for transport only) systems and that is, IMHO, a good thing. But so far, it is running 2:1 against in the karma department.

However I’m still not in favour of blacklisting vendors from government tenders if they oppose government policy. That is bad on so many levels… it’s a sort of Putin approach to government procurement.