The secret warnings of Sydney commuters being forced back onto Opal cards

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The latest target date is also 12 months after a two-year extension of the existing contract with private company Cubic to operate Opal expires. The contract has cost taxpayers $1.345 billion since 2010.

Highlighting the urgent need for the upgrade, Transport for NSW’s business case warns of the increasing risk of Opal reader and software failures, as well as security breaches, due to the system reaching the end of life.

“The risk is exacerbated by the increasing shortage of spare readers and the inability to replace them with off-the-shelf units,” it says.

“Any failure in the system increases the likelihood that [Transport for NSW] could be prevented from collecting fare-box revenue for extended periods, worth [about] $1.8 billion (pre-COVID).”

The risk of third parties targeting vulnerabilities in the system is increasing because of its age, and it could lead to “unintended disclosure of customer information or malicious attacks that would render the system inoperable”.

Citing an increase in reader failures over two years, the business case says there is a risk that more commuters will be unable to tap off at the end of their trip, leading to a rise in people being charged maximum fares and seeking refunds.

If a passenger cannot tap off at a reader, they will be charged the maximum possible fare for their journey based on their Opal card type. It means the holder of an adult Opal card who took a bus for a short trip could be slugged $5.60 instead of $3.20 for a journey of up to three kilometres.

Modelling in the business case, which is dated October 2022 and marked “sensitive”, estimates a $154 million shortfall in fare revenue annually from this financial year due to increasing shortages of readers. Opal, the country’s largest fare collection system, has about 5 million active users.

“Data provided by our vendor indicates currently nine readers per month [are] not repairable and, in forecasts approximately up to 15 readers per month will not be repairable,” the business case says.

It had assumed most of the rollout of Opal Next Gen would occur by June this year.

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Transport for NSW said in a statement that it was confident that existing ticketing machines would service the public transport network until the introduction of Opal Next Gen and that there had been “no notable increase in unexpected failure” of readers.

The agency said 0.62 per cent of readers experienced faults in 2022, 0.25 per cent in 2023 and 0.30 per cent in 2024.

“If a passenger believes their fare may have been miscalculated, they can request a fare adjustment,” it said.

Tenders for the Opal upgrade closed in December, more than two years after plans to modernise the system were announced.

Transport for NSW declined to say when it expected to award Opal Next Gen contracts or how many bids it had received.

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