NSW’s Opal card will now be rolled out onto 5,000 buses around Sydney
Buses will now be the focus of the rollout of New South Wales public transport smart card Opal.
The rollout of Opal has on trains and ferries are complete, and the service has been trailed on some bus routes.
Minister for Transport Gladys Berejiklian has announced the NSW Government will now move to the rollout of the Opal electronic ticketing on buses.
Customers on 24 bus routes in northern Sydney’s Kuring-gai and Hornsby region will have access to all the benefits of the Opal card from April 14.
“I have always said the bus rollout is the most challenging phase – technologically and operationally,” she says.
“Now that we have completed the rollout of Opal onto trains and ferries, we can focus on introducing Opal for customers on more than 5,000 buses around Sydney and the regions.”
The bus rollout will extend the Opal bus customer trial, launched in September last year, from the 594 route to every route from the Transdev-operated Mount Kuring-gai bus depot covering bus services 556 to 599.
With Opal, bus customers simply tap on when they’re boarding the bus, and tap off as they’re stepping off.
Opal automatically calculates bus fares based on on-board GPS technology, accurately measuring the straight line distance from tap on to tap off.