Brisbane’s smart card ticketing reaches milestone

Listen to this article

A new milestone has been reached for the smart card ticketing system in the Australian state of Queensland, with the state’s Transport Minister announcing the distribution of the two millionth go card.

Cubic Transportation Systems, the transportation segment of Cubic Corporation, installed and operates the ticketing system for the Queensland Government.

Cubic’s Managing Director for Australasia, Matt Cole, said the ticketing system, which features more than 10,000 pieces of equipment, is now recording more than 3 million trips a week.

More than 80% of public transport trips are now on go cards.

“Cubic is delighted to have played a part in the success of the go card system, which richly deserves the title awarded last year as the best smart card ticketing scheme for public transport in Australia,” Cole said.

The Queensland Government and the state’s transport coordination body, TransLink, deserved congratulations for the two millionth go card milestone, Cole said.

“The smart card ticketing system for southeast Queensland was rolled out three years ago. This time last year we celebrated the one millionth go card – to double that figure in the next year is a remarkable accomplishment given the huge scale of the public transport network,” he said.

“This is not just a city ticketing scheme – it’s, geographically speaking, one of Cubic’s largest projects anywhere in the world. The Queensland project covers an area of 10,000 square kilometres, stretching from Brisbane to the coast, north to Noosa and south to the New South Wales border.

“In comparison the London Oyster card scheme covers an area of 1,600 square kilometres,” he added.

To commemorate the milestone, Queensland’s Transport Minister, Annastacia Palaszczuk, presented a ‘multiplatinum’ plaque to one of the top 10 go card retailers in the State.

The milestone was achieved with the support of the many retailers who make up the largest smart card retail network in Australia, Palaszczuk said.

“We have undertaken significant investment across the go card distribution network resulting in a 150 percent growth in the past 18 months,” she said.

The growth in go card use has assisted with planning improvements to the public transport network.

“The travel data provided by go card is helping us to provide more frequent and reliable public transport, including 150,000 weekly train seats and 50,000 additional weekly bus seats we added to the TransLink network this month,” Palaszczuk added.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest Rail News

ORR review leads to 50% reduction in maximum fees for ticket refunds

New rules will mean that from 2 April the maximum fee that train operators and ticket retailers can charge...

More like this...