In what is hardly news, it has been announced that Sydney's Opal Roll out is to start shortly, on the Neutral Bay ferry from 7 December 2012. What is news about this, is that there is to be free journeys after 8 journeys in a week - a foolish policy in my opinion, borrowed from SE Qld who also use the Cubic system. Similarly, there is to be a fixed dollar daily cap, which means that again long distance commuters are to get an advantage over people living more sustainable lifestyles - this seems to be borrowed from WA who have a cap but their system sensibly doesn't include AM peak journeys in the cap. Finally, there is a $2.50 daily cap for Sundays - probably borrowed from Vic. Arguably, the latter isn't too bad as it may promote public transport use on Sundays, but it does represent farebox leakage potentially.
What hasn't been announced is that there will be an integrated fare system with Opal. This should have been announced long ago.
Regrettably, it will take until 2015 until the system is fully rolled out. After all this time, if the system is on time at least it will be done.
Update 28/11/2012:
It seems that an equivalent system is being rolled at on Auckland's derided public transport system. It will be done in 2013, and is already on trains. So it looks like Sydney will be among the last significant cities in the world to have a reasonable fare policy.
This blog is very informative about transportation in city Sydney. It introduces the development process of Sydney airport transfer because public transport is difficult in this city so govt should improve its methods and provides other travel sources to public for better transportation.
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