Tap on and, mostly, tap off. It seems simple enough but transport authorities in Australia have struggled to get it right.
There are eight public transport cards across Australia’s capital cities, including Brisbane’s Go Card, Perth’s SmartRider and Canberra’s MyWay.
Although some states allow you to tap on with a credit card (or even pay with cash), many don’t. For travellers in Melbourne outside the city’s free tram zone it can sometimes be quicker to walk than to track down somewhere to buy a Myki.
All the transport experts interviewed for this article, including those from Melbourne, agree Sydney’s Opal system is far superior to Myki.
But big changes are on the way, for Myki in particular, as the cities’ ageing ticketing systems undergo upgrades.
So could Melbourne’s technology soon overtake Sydney’s?
Sydney’s Opal card
Last year there were more than 409m trips on the New South Wales Opal network – the biggest system in Australia.
Opal cards were rolled out on ferries in 2012 and had replaced paper tickets on all Sydney public transport by 2016. An earlier electronic ticketing system, the Tcard, was proposed in the late 1990s for the 2000 Olympics. But it was aborted in 2007 after years of setbacks.
Geoffrey Clifton, a senior lecturer in transport management at the University of Sydney, says this ultimately worked in the city’s favour.
“They had to rip it all out and start again but because Sydney was delayed in getting started, they were able to use off-the-shelf technology,” he says.
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Opal – named for the state gemstone of NSW – used technology developed for London’s Oyster card by the US company Cubic.
It meant that progressively from 2017, travellers in Sydney have been able to tap with a physical credit card or a virtual one on their phone or smartwatch. That is now an option across the city’s rail, tram, bus and ferry networks.
From 2019 credit card users could access the same fares and benefits (including a $50 weekly cap) as a non-concession adult Opal card. As of 2023, they could also tap on with a locked iPhone.
Concession-card holders still have to use a physical Opal card, which they must apply for online before receiving it in the post.
Melbourne’s Myki card
Myki, a very mid-2000s play on “my key”, launched in 2008. Victorian government documents at the time said the name conjured “Mikey … a friend, who empowers a new lifestyle with easy access”.
In 2012 the system fully replaced paper Metcard tickets, which themselves had led to tram conductors being controversially phased out in 1998.
Clifton says this resulted in a somewhat antagonistic relationship between Victorians and their ticketing system. “The travelling public are still grumpy, 30 years later,” he says.
After paying $6 upfront for a card, Myki users can add credit and tap on or off using the card, or a “mobile Myki” registered to their phone, but only on Android. (Confusingly, you don’t have to tap off on Melbourne’s trams in zone one.)
Jago Dodson, professor of urban policy at RMIT University, bemoans Myki’s “confounding” lack of iPhone access and the difficulty some travellers have in finding a retailer in Melbourne.
The technology behind Myki, formerly operated by the Japanese company NTT Data, does not let travellers tap on and off with a credit card. But unlike Opal, they are free to buy a concession Myki from a machine or over the counter at a station or corner store – they just need to be ready to prove their eligibility to inspectors.
Myki’s technology also means users have to hold their card to the readers for longer. Dodson says in Myki’s early days, readers were “notorious for being quite slow to respond” but they have since improved.
“It is not really a major barrier but obviously any delay is undesirable.”
So … where are they heading?
More than 20,000 Myki readers are being gradually replaced, which will allow people to tap on using a credit card for the first time.
The US company Conduent beat Cubic to the $1.7bn contract, despite earlier attempts by the Opal operator to take over Melbourne’s ticketing system.
A Transport Victoria spokesperson said it was expected all the new readers would be installed by the end of this year.
They won’t accept credit cards until early next year. Even then the contactless payments will initially work only on the rail network – meaning old-school Myki cards will remain a fixture on trams and buses for now.
The upgrade will prioritise contactless payments with a physical credit card or one saved to your phone’s digital wallet. So those who prefer to use a “mobile Myki” will still only be able to do so on Android phones for now.
State budget papers in May revealed the full upgrade won’t be completed across Victoria’s public transport network until at least late 2028, pushing out the forecast in last year’s budget by 18 months and increasing the cost by $136.7m.
The upgraded Myki system will eventually allow concession-card holders to use a credit card to access reduced fares, which include a daily cap of $5.50. (The daily cap is $11 for regular fares.) From 2026 under-18s will be able to travel free across Victoria.
Sydney’s system is also to be upgraded, with 25,000 card readers replaced and new software rolled out.
The Opal “next gen” project began in 2022 but Transport for NSW is yet to announce the shortlisted companies. This year’s state budget allocated an additional $170.6m to the project, bringing total funding to $738.5m.
One proposed feature would allow concertgoers to use event ticket QR codes to tap on for “free” travel. There could also be an option to have a mobile Opal on your smartphone or smartwatch.
Transport for NSW declined to comment before the procurement process was completed but said “user-friendly benefits … will be finalised once the contract is awarded”. It said upgrades could be staggered across the network.
Transport for NSW is reportedly targeting September 2027 as a “go-live” date – meaning Melbourne’s upgrades are likely to arrive first.
A bumpy ride ahead?
Hussein Dia, a professor of future urban mobility at Swinburne University, says hardware and back-end systems typically have a shelf life of “10 to 15 years”, meaning Myki and Opal’s current iterations are fast approaching the end of their lives.
Hussein says the staggered rollout of the new Myki system has introduced an element of confusion for travellers. Although the new card readers bear the contactless credit card symbol, for now they still work only with a Myki card.
In January it was reported that Sydney commuters could be forced to return to physical Opal cards if credit card providers refused to allow transactions on the ageing system, as software failures and security breaches become more likely.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported a confidential internal document warning that more frequent Opal reader failures could lead to more people being charged maximum fares if unable to tap off.
In a statement, Transport for NSW said it was “confident the current Opal ticketing machines will continue to service our public transport network until the introduction of Opal Next Gen”.
“If a passenger believes they have been charged an incorrect fare, they can request an adjustment,” the department said.
Clifton suggests that once the upgrades are completed, Melbourne and Sydney will have ticketing system parity.
But given that Opal next gen will arrive later, increasing the possibility of system failures, Melbourne may briefly have better ticketing.
“As far as the travelling public is concerned, they won’t notice much difference … which is a good thing,” Clifton says. “We want travel and transport to be as smooth as possible. [It should be] as easy to pay your bus fare as it is to buy a cup of coffee.”
