Queensland’s new-generation Go Card could be a smartphone app which might also be used as a debit card to buy food, drink and magazines at train and bus stations.
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That is one option to be explored as Queensland Transport begins to consider the next 10 years of what Queenslanders now know as the "Go Card".
This month Queensland Transport called for tenders for experts to design its "Next Generation Ticketing Project".
Giant US-based public transport and defence contractor Cubic Corporation in July 2006 won a 10-year $225 million contract to develop the Go-Card public transport system in Queensland.
There are now 3 million Go Cards in Southeast Queensland, accounting for almost 80 per cent of the 700,000 public transport journeys a day.
Queensland Transport now wants to lay the foundations for the next stage of public transport ticketing in an era in which smartphones are used universally as a personal pocket computer.
Queensland Transport has this month asked for technical advice for the new system, which will replace the existing system in September 2016.
Rail: Back on Track spokesman Robert Dow welcomed the beginning of the new generation of public transport thinking.
"It looks like they are moving ahead with an improved electronic smart card for public transport in South East Queensland," Mr Dow said. "We think this is a very encouraging sign."
Mr Dow said it was time the Go Card was modernised because commuters wanted more from the Cubic contract.
"We think that is related to the fact that they got a very base-level software package with it," he said.
Mr Dow suggested three restrictions with the Go Card frustrated Queensland Transport.
The first was "clumsy fare options" including free trips after 10 journeys, which he suggested were inefficient, led to fare leakage and should be replaced by free fares after a "capped daily fare".
The second was technical problems in directly charging for a Brisbane City Council City Cycle account using the Go Card, despite Transport Minister Scott Emerson’s efforts in 2013 to start the scheme.
And before that in 2010 Queensland Police conceded they used Go-Card’s electronic tracking abilities to locate people, sparking calls for Queensland Council for Civil Liberties for change.
Mr Dow pointed to examples in Singapore – where a similar smart card is also used as a debit card – and at Brisbane’s Airtrain – where customers simply use a smartphone app to book ahead.
Brisbane Airtrain introduced in February a smartphone app so customers can book an Airtrain to and from Brisbane Airport before they arrived.
Brisbane Airtrain chief executive Chris Basche said they introduced their e-ticket because customers demanded it.
"It is pretty exciting stuff and it is pretty popular with our customers," he said.
"Our online bookings are now 3.5 per cent and growing," he said.
"Our research show that a large number of people make decisions about arriving and departing airports in advance.
"And we are providing those customers with the ability to plan their journey in advance."
Brisbane Airtrain’s e-ticket also comes with a 10 per cent fare discount if it is bought in advance, he said.
"That provides them with a barcode and that barcode is scanned at the airport and at the city," he said.
The barcode can be on the person’s smartphone, or printed out, he said.
"Yes, you have the ability to have the barcode on your smartphone and then our scanners read that barcode and you are then ticketed."
A spokeswoman for Mr Emerson said a contractor was being employed to provide early technical advice to Translink on the types of ticketing options that would be part of the contract to go out in 2016.
"Translink will have a team of people who will work on that contract – that tender process – and this is one of the people they need to help with that."
