Here comes HOP

Some readers of this blog may have seen the title of this post and thought "hang on, HOP's been out for a year already!" Well, it has, sort of. The current HOP card used on NZ Bus services (Waka Pacific, North Star, GO West, Metrolink and LINK services) is actually a Snapper card, similar to - and compatible with - the cards used in Wellington, just with HOP branding applied. Some of you may remember that Snapper was recently dumped from the integrated ticketing project due to them not being able to meet deadlines. Because of this, Snapper HOP (or SnOP) will be phased out instead of merely complementing the new card as was the plan.

Testing of the AT HOP card began yesterday, with around 100 people signing up to the pilot program. I was one of the lucky ones able to join this program and can report it works very well.

Tagging off at Papakura

In the photo above I'm tagging off at Papakura after tagging on using the gates at Britomart. You can see that the deducted fare is being displayed on the left (a discount of at least 10% off cash fares applies to HOP cards) along with my remaining balance on the right. The system is very simple to use from a user perspective, and, all going well, rolls out to the general public for use on trains on 27 October, with ferries following in late November and all buses (not just NZ Bus) next year.

Here comes HOP. For real this time.