More than 8.7 million customers have travelled on the country\u2019s busiest bus route, in just 12 months, and from today they can pay with their card or device of choice.
\nThe Bondi Link service is celebrating its first birthday, on the same day contactless technology was switched on across the entire Opal network.
\nMinister for Transport Andrew Constance said the achievement marks a significant milestone in this Australian first transport innovation.
\n\u201cThe Bondi Link service has carried more customers than the state\u2019s population in its first year of operation, an average of 22,000 a day.
\n\u201cThe great news is those customers now have the ease of tapping on with a whole range of options, including debit and credit cards,\u201d Mr Constance said.
\nMember for Vaucluse Gabrielle Upton said the turn up and go bus model proved a big hit.
\n\u201cMy community wanted a better bus service and our Government has delivered it through Bondi Link, which has made more than 124,000 trips in 12 months,\u201d Ms Upton said.
\nState Transit CEO Steffen Faurby said he was proud the government-owned bus operator could deliver improved services for customers in the eastern suburbs.
\n\u201cBondi Link has clocked up around 1.3 million in-service kilometres on daily travels from Bondi Beach to Circular Quay. To put that distance into perspective, the fleet has gone around earth\u2019s circumference more than 32 times.\u201d
\nBuses today joined trains, ferries, light rail and Metro in allowing customers to tap on and off with their credit card, debit card or linked device \u2013 like a smartphone.
\n\u201cThis achievement marks the final piece of the contactless payments puzzle,\u201d Mr Constance said.
\nCustomers using this payment method can access all the same fare benefits of an Adult Opal card, including the weekly travel reward and transfer discount.
\nAmerican Express, Mastercard and Visa are accepted and customers can tap on and off using mobile wallets on smartphones, tablets and wearable devices linked to these cards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than 8.7 million customers have travelled on the country\u2019s busiest bus route, in just 12 months, and from today they can pay with their card or device of choice. The Bondi Link service is celebrating its first birthday, on the same day contactless technology was switched on across the entire Opal network. Minister for … Continue reading “ENTIRE OPAL NETWORK NOW CONTACTLESS”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}