Image: Blake Chen
The Victorian government has renewed a high profile contract with Japanese company NTT Data at a cost of $700 million to operate the state’s public transport ticketing system for the next seven years.
Myki, as it’s called by Public Transport Victoria, will be managed and maintained by the same company that’s fallen within public scrutiny after Victorian Auditor-General John Doyle tabled a report in June 2015 calling the myki system a “failure”.
Mr Doyle criticised the government’s management of the system because of its cost blowouts and called the system a “bureaucratic nightmare”.
Despite those criticisms by the Auditor-General, the state government is calling the new deal a ‘stronger contract’ that paves the way for improvements, including stronger performance requirements and will deliver better value for money through a fixed-price model where unanticipated costs are borne by the operator – not taxpayers.
Minister for Public Transport Jacinta Allan said “we’ve made major upgrades to myki and work on the next generation of improvements starts today – looking at the latest technology to make it quicker and easier to top up, touch on and get where you need to go.”
Aside from the new contract, the state government has also announced that it will immediately begin investigating new ‘contactless technology’ in its ticketing system, which enables commuters to touch on and off with their credit card or smart phone.
No doubt even tighter security features will need to be built into this planned system.
According to the state government, the work will build on significant improvements that have been made to Victoria’s ticketing system over the past 18 months, including 90 minute online top-ups, faster readers on trams and at Victoria’s busiest stations, and the roll-out of tap-and-go payment technology on myki machines.
Another big part of Victoria’s public transport system reform is an overhaul of the state’s fare enforcement system by abolishing on-the-spot penalty fares and creating a single infringement system that the government reckons will make it easier to do the right thing.
The new myki contract will begin on 1st January, 2017.
