Mobile Phones to be used as transport Go Cards in the close future

South East Queensland public transport users could soon be using their smart phones as Go Cards. Transport Minister, Scott Emerson has called it "the next generation ticketing project".

He told the Transport, Housing and Local Government Committee budget estimates hearings that 30 potential respondents had already been identified, so the new project would be opened to government tender from Tuesday.

"Given the complicity of the system because SEQ, South East Queensland, is one of the largest integrated ticketing networks in the world and the significant revenue it collects on behalf of the state, the mobilisation of the project through to delivery needs to be carefully procured and delivered to mitigate failure of any new ticketing options, particularly one of this magnitude," Mr Emerson said.

The current Cubic ticketing system expires in late 2016. Mr Emerson said he wanted to look towards the future and examine "all of the exciting options out there".

This will be a new change into de Translink procedures and policies, adding to other different and important changes like the reforms done to the Concession Cards or Green Cards, and some retrenchment figures - one in every five employees has been let go in the past two years, resulting in about a 20 per cent reduction in staff. Queensland Rail now has about 5800 full-time equivalent positions.

By Santi Ivar

Sources:

brisbanetimes.com.au

X