ACS selected for SA transport micropayments

The patchy, tending toward the miserable, record of smart card-based suppliers of payment solutions for public transport payments has not deterred the government of South Australia from opting to update its own ticketing systems.

The SA government has handed the contract to develop its public transport ticketing system in Adelaide to Xerox subsidiary Affiliated Computer Services. The contract is valued at $30 million.

ACS also implemented Adelaide's existing ticketing system, using technology from French company Crouzet-SA, back in 1987.

ACS's contract includes all aspects of the smartcard system implementation, including ongoing technical support.

The ACS solution is already being used in cities such as Montreal, Houston and Toulouse and would allow the new contactless smartcards and the old magnetic tickets to operate on the same machines.

As a consequence, the existing tickets will still work with the new system, and the rollout of the smartcard technology will happen progressively.

Perth's transport network uses a smart-card based payment system solution from Delairco Bartrol, which works.

Brisbane is using an implementation from Cubic, which doesn't; Melbourne is introducing a system from Keane at a snail's pace (amid fears that a full implementation will not work) while in Sydney the contract was scrapped two years ago and the cardboard, magnetic stripe tickets look likely to remain in use for many years.