The rollout of the NSW Opal card on 600 bus services marks the end of paper tickets
Opal is now live on 600 more buses in Sydney’s West and North West which brings the end to having tickets marked off manually with a pen for hundreds of thousands of customers.
Minister for Transport Gladys Berejiklian says the rollout on Hillsbus services doubles the footprint of Opal electronic ticketing on buses and means 115 bus routes across Sydney are now live with Opal.
“This is a huge milestone for the Opal rollout and means customers from Sydney’s North West into Parramatta, Macquarie Park, North Sydney and the Sydney CBD will have access to faster and more convenient travel,” she says.
“These bus routes in the North West carry more than 15 million passenger journeys a year.
“Many of these customers currently get their paper tickets marked off with a pen every time they board the bus.”
Berejiklian says Opal is helping Sydney’s transport network move into the 21st century and putting an end to fumbling for coins, queuing for tickets, and the frustration of turning up to the bus stop and realising your TravelTen has just run out.
“It’s not a surprise Opal is proving so popular, with more than 355,000 cards now issued and more than 4.5 million free trips already taken on suburban and intercity trains, Sydney Ferries services and an increasing number of bus services.”
She also reminds customers that on September 1 this year, 14 old paper ticket types are being retired.
“We’re getting on with transforming public transport services, and this means catching up to the rest of the world by retiring some paper tickets and getting more people tapping on with Opal,” she says.