Is Sony Providing our new Ticketing?

Up to 15 Expressions of Interest have been submitted to the Public transport Ticketing Authority for the Integrated Ticketing system Sydney sorely needs. The group are:

Groups who submitted a tender are:

ACS Transport Solutions Inc - United States
Scheidt & Bachmann GmbH - Germany
Citigroup Consortium - Australia
Shanghai Huateng Software Systems
Consortium - China
D & R Technology Consortium – Australia
Snapper Consortium - New Zealand
e-Pay Australia – Australia
Sony Corporation - Japan
Glide Consortium - Australia
Telvent Australia - Australia
Hampstead Consulting – Australia
Wave Team - Australia
Indra Sistemas, S.A. Consortium - Spain
Zheng Guang Australia Consortium -
Australia
Pearl Consortium - Australia

So what will be the future of public transport ticketing? IPART has said in its Review of Cityrail fares 2009-12:

The new electronic fares will be structured to provide:

- consistent, mode-specific, distance-based fares
- automatic discounting to reward frequent public transport users
fare concessions
- differential pricing for peak/off-peak services.


IPART’s draft decision transitions CityRail’s fare structure towards a structure that is consistent with electronic ticketing. For example, the electronic ticketing single fare will be structured around a flag-fall ($2.50) and (9c)per kilometre charge.

IPART considers that there may be further opportunity to simplify the fare structure once electronic ticketing is introduced. Further reform, such as off-peak tickets for contra-peak journeys or services with significant excess capacity, as well as shoulder-period fares (for the periods adjacent to peak periods) may also be explored under electronic ticketing technology.

So will we have a integrated public transport system that is easy to use, and goes to where people want to go. Your guess, is as good as mine.