Opal card: Thoughts?

Disclaimer: I'm not a regular commuter, I walk to work. I live close to a train station. I don't work for Opal/Cityrail.

I like it. I catch the train now more often than I used to. Instead of driving to the shops, I like taking the train and back, taking advantage of the 60 minute transfer. All for $3.30, or $2.31 off-peak. Granted, I can't bring as much shopping back, which may be a plus I guess if it limits how much I spend. But it saves me petrol and looking for parking. I know doing a 60-minute round-shopping trip isn't for everybody, but it works for me as a single guy. At $7.60 or $5.00 off-peak return for paper fares (at a minimum), it was tipping the favour towards the car.

On the Sundays I'm not working, I always think of ways to make full use of the $2.50 daily fare. I intend to catch the Manly Ferry and go to the Blue Mountains in the near future.

Cons: One Sunday, it ate into my 'profit margin' when I had to catch a 4XX bus without an Opal reader and had to pay a normal fare in addition to the $2.50 daily rate. And most times, I'm wary of not catching a bus because of the dangers of not tapping-off. It's so easy to forget, but I'm lucky it didn't cost me anything extra when it happened on a Sunday.

Comments

  • +3

    It's marginally better if you're doing consistent journeys on a regular basis.

    If you change modes (bus-train-ferry), travel irregularly, or use long term tickets, you're getting shafted

  • +4

    More expensive than quarterly and yearly tickets which are coincidentally being phased out. Will be about $400 more expensive. So it's a shit move on shitty rails part.

    • nope if you are in the rights categories. ie.
      office workers go to work monday to friday, and then during lunch time you use opal to do one short trip. you will reach 8 trips per week on wednesday therefore for the rest of the week you travel for free.
      in my calculation, i spend less than quarterly ticket now, plus i can go to wollonggong blue mountain etc for free on weekend!

  • +2

    I'm a semi-regular commuter - 3 days a week. For my trip, Opal works out about 10% cheaper than buying paper fares, sometimes more if I stay late at work and hit the off peak period.

    Main downside for me is the readers. Aside from being slow, they don't always register my tap off and I end up getting charged full fare (which then wastes my time to complain and get a refund). This has somehow happened at gated stations: tap off, gates open, walk through, then I find out I was charged full fare for not tapping off?!

  • I have just received my Opal card today. I don't travel much as I mostly work from home. I might only use it a few times a month to travel to CBD for meetings. Yes it might be a bit more expensive than buying MyBus travel 10 for me, however it's certainly more convenient. When I get out of the house I don't need to check whether the travel 10 in my wallet is still valid. If I happen to take a different mode of transport (which is very rare) I don't have to check the fare etc — just tap on and tap off.

    Like it or not, it's something a metro city like Sydney ought to have (15 years ago).

    • once Opal is activated on all busses, people will have free transfers between busses — this is a major plus for commuters which the SMH (which seems to have a hidden agenda against the Opal) hasn't written about, and will save people who catch multiples busses to work (or previously could have, but didn't due to the extra cost) a lot of money.

  • +3

    It saves me a little money and is more convenient than arriving early to the station to buy a ticket. I think they should allow annual ticket holders to prepay whatever their previous annual fee was and get a bonus (say, $1000 credit for an $800 deposit).
    That would take the sting out for annual ticket holders, and would also benefit people like me who don't travel enough to justify an annual ticket, but would pre-pay to get the discount.

  • Don't know if security will be an issue, but I'm hoping these Opal cards take a leaf out of HK's "Octopus" cards and actually make it available to most if not all stores (restaurants, convenience store etc.). Since HK has been using it for the past 10 years or so, I reckon there shouldn't be too much of a security issue.

    No more need to carry cash around anymore =)

    • I think Australia is moving towards PayPass/PayWave for contactless payments, which has its own problems.

      • They're basically the same thing really, except with Opal, you have the option to top up instead of being directed linked to your credit cards.

        Though, i suppose you can do that with debit cards… debit cards can get paywave right?

        • Sure, everybody here knows of the Ing debit card 5% rebate.

        • @greenpossum: OMG, i completely forgot about that. Personally i don't have one since i prefer to get frequent flyers when i make purchases.

  • +1

    Late and overpriced . Only good for Sundays 2.50$ any trip

  • I had an Opal card on the first day it was activated on our place really convenient, I never need to Que, after a months use i decided to setup the Automatic top-up , the hassle part is it wont work sometimes if I put in inside my phones's case so basically everytime I need to tap-in/tap-out I need put it out inside my wallet

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