SNAPPER'S HERE, NOW GIVE US THE GPS
4 August 2008
Tom PULLAR-STRECKER
OVER the past two weeks I have returned to commuting by bus to try out the new Snapper smart card.
It is cheaper than driving to work and far healthier than walking -- there is nothing like trying to hang on to a slithery steel pole and a rucksack as you are hurtled around the sharp, steep bends of Wellington's northern suburbs for improving middle body tone, or so I hope.
My initial experiences of Snapper were mixed. Yes, you can "tag off" and exit from the front of the bus, even though Go Wellington is trying to encourage more orderly indoor-outdoor flow by not exactly volunteering that information (dream on).
And you can tag off at the point at which most passengers would walk up to the exit, shortly before the bus actually stops and the deceleration really kicks in -- when you may need to have both hands anchored to stop yourself being hurled into the arms of other passengers.
Ominously, about one time in four, Snapper "failed" to read my card first time, giving me a red cross rather rather a green circle when entering and leaving buses and inviting me to "try again".
I didn't think it could all be a question of technique. To register a failed transaction, the reader must have identified the presence of a card, after all.
Previously, Snapper Services has quoted a read time of a fifth of a second.
But Zane Fulljames, general manager of NZ Bus in the southern region, says the card needs to be held still to the reader for about half a second to complete the "bidirectional smart card conversation", which perhaps explains it.
By "still", it seems Mr Fulljames means really quite still, and the secret is not to move the card away till the reader beeps. Perhaps a practice Snapper reader installed in Courtenay Place might help commuters hone their skills.
A peek at the drivers' terminals confirms Snapper has required that a global positioning system be fitted to all buses. That is how the readers know where the bus is, and how much to debit each card for the journey.
It appears that, at the moment, Go Wellington has no means of getting the GPS signal off the bus and making the location of buses available to the public. But it is this that would encourage me back to the buses for good.
Wellington Regional Council is working on a project to provide real-time passenger information via the Web, cellphones and electronic signs at some bus stops. Its wheels are moving surely, but slowly.
It would be great to think there might be an opportunity for one of the many talented IT start-ups in this city to work with Go Wellington to put together a stop-gap solution.
Forget the signs at bus stops; if it were possible to get the GPS data just to the Web so office workers could check the location of buses on-screen from their desktop computers and time their dash home, that would be just the ticket.
©2008 Fairfax New Zealand Limited.
Dominion Post
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