Auckland Transport says $1 million spent on
launching swipe cards which will be replaced after less than a year was
worthwhile as a branding exercise.
More than 93,000 Hop cards were
introduced last year to bus services run by NZ Bus, which is contracted
by Auckland Transport to run more than half of the buses in Auckland.
But
the electronic swipe cards will all be replaced by new cards before the
end of the year as the cards can't be used on trains, ferries and
Auckland Transport bus services run by other companies.
The
original cards were supplied by Snapper, the system owned by Infratil
and which is run on Wellington buses but which was beaten to the
Auckland-wide integrated ticketing system contract in favour of
French-based company Thales.
Auckland Transport spent $1 million
on marketing the Hop cards last year, money spokeswoman Sharon Hunter
says was well spent as the Hop name would remain for the integrated
ticket.
"The money was used to successfully launch the Hop brand," she told NZ Newswire.
"It has gone down extremely well with users."
Ms
Hunter said efforts were made to see if the Snapper technology used for
the current cards and the system which will be used for Hop across the
network technology would be compatible enough for current cards to
remain in use.
It turned out they weren't, and the final decision to roll out new cards was made in early January.
"New cards were always an item in the budget so there won't be any extra money allocated," Ms Hunter said.
Auckland Transport is testing the new Hop card and they should be in use on the public transport network by the end of 2012.
NZN