Public Transport charges

Michael Forbes at Dom Post reports:

A reduction in the discount traditionally enjoyed by those who pre-pay for their public transport is being proposed by Greater Wellington Regional Council officers.

The 2013-14 draft Annual Plan, which will be tabled at a council meeting today, also floats an average rates increase of 2.6 per cent.

Bus and train operators are required to offer a minimum 20 per cent discount on multi-trip tickets and stored value cards.

But changes being proposed by council officers would see that reduced to 17 per cent in zone 1 – an area of heavy public transport usage encompassing the Wellington CBD, Aro Valley and Thorndon.

That would be a silly decision.

If you look at successful public transport programmes overseas, one of the keys is to get almost everyone using cards such as Snapper. In London, almost no one buys tickets for single trips. They all have Oyster cards.

The key to getting everyone onto prepay cards is to have massive discounts on them (ie it is too expensive not to have one) and to have a daily limit on them.

Wellington should move to integrated ticketing, and increase the price difference between pre-paid cards and cash tickets.