Looks like Quaylink Q3  is the next service to get Tap on Tap off

https://twitter.com/gonortheast/status/1...2062115846

(16 Feb 2021, 2:40 pm)streetdeckfan wrote Looks like Quaylink Q3  is the next service to get Tap on Tap off

https://twitter.com/gonortheast/status/1...2062115846

Interesting point on the news article that you can only use it on one of the 2 services. Hopefully, that will be changed in the future with day ticket type caps being introduced if you use more than one route. Looks like they're doing this around Newcastle & Gateshead for the time being (makes sense) although it would be interesting if it expands to certain routes only first. Then there may be confusion where you'd have to wait for a particular service. For example, at the Metrocentre going into town, if a 6 turns up but the only routes accepting Tap on Tap off are the Tyne Valley 10 routes, there could potentially be some confusion.


https://www.gonortheast.co.uk/tap-on-tap-off

(16 Feb 2021, 3:10 pm)Adtrainsam wrote Interesting point on the news article that you can only use it on one of the 2 services. Hopefully, that will be changed in the future with day ticket type caps being introduced if you use more than one route. Looks like they're doing this around Newcastle & Gateshead for the time being (makes sense) although it would be interesting if it expands to certain routes only first. Then there may be confusion where you'd have to wait for a particular service. For example, at the Metrocentre going into town, if a 6 turns up but the only routes accepting Tap on Tap off are the Tyne Valley 10 routes, there could potentially be some confusion.


https://www.gonortheast.co.uk/tap-on-tap-off

I would imagine it's being gradually increased to iron out any issues prior to a full launch. The system has potential, especially when a full rollout is complete, but we're really 17-18 years behind already. Oyster was launched back in 2003.

(16 Feb 2021, 2:40 pm)streetdeckfan wrote Looks like Quaylink Q3  is the next service to get Tap on Tap off

https://twitter.com/gonortheast/status/1...2062115846

A good choice - since this is a fairly self-contained service, and doesn't run parallel to many other GNE routes.

I'm sure the plan is it's going to be a regionwide thing, don't believe it's a purely GNE thing this and is part of NEBus. I know on the introduction slides that it's Knox who was talking about it and that there was a working group trial which is basically this, I mentioned it in some other thread.

Glad to see it's progressing though as it's the sort of thing that's useful for people who are clueless about tickets especially when there's 10 different types.

(16 Feb 2021, 8:25 pm)Adrian wrote I would imagine it's being gradually increased to iron out any issues prior to a full launch. The system has potential, especially when a full rollout is complete, but we're really 17-18 years behind already. Oyster was launched back in 2003.

It's a shame they didn't roll it out when they launched the Pop cards

(17 Feb 2021, 5:38 pm)streetdeckfan wrote It's a shame they didn't roll it out when they launched the Pop cards

Nexus don't care about buses though tbf. The Pop card should've never been released imo or it should've been a rebrand of Network One. It isn't half confusing having numerous different schemes which don't compliment each other for someone who never uses buses.

(17 Feb 2021, 5:41 pm)Storx wrote Nexus don't care about buses though tbf. The Pop card should've never been released imo or it should've been a rebrand of Network One. It isn't half confusing having numerous different schemes which don't compliment each other for someone who never uses buses.

To be fair, the Pop card is good for what it is. Which is basically a contactless bank card. You just top it up and pay.
Other than getting a Metro season ticket, there's nowt else it does.

I never understood why GNE didn't just work with NEXUS to allow tickets to be loaded onto a Pop card rather than having to have a separate Key card.

I'm sure Arriva and Stagecoach had their own separate smart card system as well. 

It would have made much more sense to have the one card that can be loaded with different tickets, like you say, you could load Network One tickets if you wanted multi-operator tickets.

(17 Feb 2021, 5:45 pm)streetdeckfan wrote To be fair, the Pop card is good for what it is. Which is basically a contactless bank card. You just top it up and pay.
Other than getting a Metro season ticket, there's nowt else it does.

I never understood why GNE didn't just work with NEXUS to allow tickets to be loaded onto a Pop card rather than having to have a separate Key card.

I'm sure Arriva and Stagecoach had their own separate smart card system as well. 

It would have made much more sense to have the one card that can be loaded with different tickets, like you say, you could load Network One tickets if you wanted multi-operator tickets.

Dunno I just think they took the complete wrong approach me, Pop to me is a metro season ticket, does anyone actually use the PAYG? Never seen anyone tbh.

The Robin Hood cards down in Nottingham are the way they should've been done imo - https://robinhoodnetwork.co.uk/pay-you-go-cards, dead simple pricing and there's caps it's basically what they're trying to do with the tap on tap off now by the looks of it without Nexus' help.

Then you've got the season tickets - https://robinhoodnetwork.co.uk/season-cards which are pretty much our Network One cards.

Simple and effective unlike Key Cards, Pop Card, Arriva Card, Network One, Buzz Zones, Arriva Triple Tickets, Smartzones, Stagecoach Megarider, Metro Season Tickets, Transfares, GNE local zones, Arriva Coastliner Tickets and the rest we've got.

(17 Feb 2021, 5:57 pm)Storx wrote Dunno I just think they took the complete wrong approach me, Pop to me is a metro season ticket, does anyone actually use the PAYG? Never seen anyone tbh.

The Robin Hood cards down in Nottingham are the way they should've been done imo - https://robinhoodnetwork.co.uk/pay-you-go-cards, dead simple pricing and there's caps it's basically what they're trying to do with the tap on tap off now by the looks of it without Nexus' help.

Then you've got the season tickets - https://robinhoodnetwork.co.uk/season-cards which are pretty much our Network One cards.

Simple and effective unlike Key Cards, Pop Card, Arriva Card, Network One, Buzz Zones, Arriva Triple Tickets, Smartzones, Stagecoach Megarider, Metro Season Tickets, Transfares, GNE local zones, Arriva Coastliner Tickets and the rest we've got.

I did actually see quite a few people using Pop cards to pay on the bus, but they looked like they were carers and the like, so I'm guessing they were provided by work so they don't have to go through the faff of claiming expenses.

The difference with the Robin Hood cards is journeys are fixed price, so there's no need for them to tap off to calculate the price, which I think is the main 'issue' with the network round here.

(17 Feb 2021, 6:28 pm)streetdeckfan wrote I did actually see quite a few people using Pop cards to pay on the bus, but they looked like they were carers and the like, so I'm guessing they were provided by work so they don't have to go through the faff of claiming expenses.

The difference with the Robin Hood cards is journeys are fixed price, so there's no need for them to tap off to calculate the price, which I think is the main 'issue' with the network round here.

Honestly never seen anyone use one me especially on the Metro. Possibly tho like.

Tbf tho there's pretty much already capped fares around anyway with the transfares. I know it causes some anomalies with Arriva over boundaries where you could buy a single to a boundary then a single from there to Newcastle cheaper than a single fare throughout. If you charged the capped fares above the actual singles can't see the operators complaining and if you do multiple journeys your going to be at the day rover price pretty much straight away anyway. Wouldn't be surprised if there's some with GNE around Durham area as there seems to be some steep fares from Houghton towards Durham.

(17 Feb 2021, 6:32 pm)Storx wrote Honestly never seen anyone use one me especially on the Metro. Possibly tho like.

Tbf tho there's pretty much already capped fares around anyway with the transfares. I know it causes some anomalies with Arriva over boundaries where you could buy a single to a boundary then a single from there to Newcastle cheaper than a single fare throughout. If you charged the capped fares above the actual singles can't see the operators complaining and if you do multiple journeys your going to be at the day rover price pretty much straight away anyway. Wouldn't be surprised if there's some with GNE around Durham area as there seems to be some steep fares from Houghton towards Durham.

But then you've got the longer distance routes where a single is ~£5. 

Nobody is going to want to have a flat fare of £5, and operators aren't going to want to drop a ticket down from £5 to £2.

I know when I want to travel back up to Gateshead, it's actually cheaper for me to get the 5-25 day ticket than it is to get a single.

(17 Feb 2021, 6:54 pm)streetdeckfan wrote But then you've got the longer distance routes where a single is ~£5. 

Nobody is going to want to have a flat fare of £5, and operators aren't going to want to drop a ticket down from £5 to £2.

I know when I want to travel back up to Gateshead, it's actually cheaper for me to get the 5-25 day ticket than it is to get a single.

Aye that's fair there tbh I was just talking about inside nexus land there. Suppose you could just zone the whole of the north east like the zones here and just do fares on the zones. Be a good system anyway regardless so you know how much your paying regardless of operator rather than some of the rather joke fares around. 

I dunno just think pop was a missed opportunity.

(17 Feb 2021, 6:28 pm)streetdeckfan wrote I did actually see quite a few people using Pop cards to pay on the bus, but they looked like they were carers and the like, so I'm guessing they were provided by work so they don't have to go through the faff of claiming expenses.

The difference with the Robin Hood cards is journeys are fixed price, so there's no need for them to tap off to calculate the price, which I think is the main 'issue' with the network round here.

I definitely think the "tap off" element is solvable. To give an example - the Go Ahead operation in the Thames Valley (Oxford Buses/Thames Travel/Carousel) seem to have a full tap on tap off system which they call Freeflow. While some services are flat fare, there are quite a few "intercity" services like the X40 which have a wide range of fares.

That said, even the most expensive singles seem to be fairly cheap down there, so there's not too much of an issue if you accidentally get charged a maximum fare (the biggest gap I can find is £2.00 vs £4.20 depending on whether you're making a short hop within Oxford or a long journey to somewhere like Reading).

(17 Feb 2021, 7:47 pm)BoroLad wrote I definitely think the "tap off" element is solvable. To give an example - the Go Ahead operation in the Thames Valley (Oxford Buses/Thames Travel/Carousel) seem to have a full tap on tap off system which they call Freeflow. While some services are flat fare, there are quite a few "intercity" services like the X40 which have a wide range of fares.

That said, even the most expensive singles seem to be fairly cheap down there, so there's not too much of an issue if you accidentally get charged a maximum fare (the biggest gap I can find is £2.00 vs £4.20 depending on whether you're making a short hop within Oxford or a long journey to somewhere like Reading).

Oh, I'm not saying it's a terribly hard thing to solve, if anything it's just a case of installing the readers because they're using the same ticket machines.

And presumably it just works the same as if the driver had selected a destination on the ticket machine, and it caches the card details until it's either tapped back off, or enough time has lapsed for it to default to the maximum fare.

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Before contactless was rolled out I used to use POP PAYG on buses all the time as it saved having to deal with cash.

I still have my POP PAYG in my work bag for the odd occasion I’d use Metro. Means I could tap in and out at barriers without having to get a ticket from the machines.
I’m looking forward to Metro enabling contactless on their barriers & validators, at which point I’ll be able to ditch the POP card, just like I ditched my Oyster when London rolled out contactless across all modes.

(17 Feb 2021, 5:45 pm)streetdeckfan wrote To be fair, the Pop card is good for what it is. Which is basically a contactless bank card. You just top it up and pay.
Other than getting a Metro season ticket, there's nowt else it does.

I never understood why GNE didn't just work with NEXUS to allow tickets to be loaded onto a Pop card rather than having to have a separate Key card.

I'm sure Arriva and Stagecoach had their own separate smart card system as well. 

It would have made much more sense to have the one card that can be loaded with different tickets, like you say, you could load Network One tickets if you wanted multi-operator tickets.

All the different schemes and dis-jointed approaches can be put down to one thing. Money.

There was a shed-load of it chucked to operators from central government and they all went their own way, launching their own schemes.

I've shared some of the figures handed out elsewhere on the forum and it's mind boggling. 
There was no incentive at all to go for the joined up approach. 

Quite why tap on/tap off has taken so long, is anyone's guess. I think Adrian mentioned oyster being around for over 10 years.
I remember using tap on/tap off on the trams in Amsterdam before then too.

I use my PoP Blue Card on every bus I get and it's really handy. Although yesterday I saved some money as I got on a 7 (stagecoach) to go home from work and I asked for a U19 single and the driver said just get on I have no idea what to do with that. Was he being lazy/forgotten or have they stopped showing drivers about the different PoP Cards etc... ?