“The roll out of integrated ticket is one of the greatest debacles in the state’s history. Bureaucratic intransigence & incompetence combined with ministerial ineptitude to drain the state’s tax payer of over a billion dollars.” Said Mathew Hounsell co convenor of Ecotransit.
“A simple universal fare structure would have allowed integrated ticketing to be rolled out across the state quickly and at a reasonable price. Instead the previous Labor government was bullied by the bureaucracy, especially treasury, into wasting taxpayers funds in a pointless expensive exercise of fiddling fares to give the appearance of maximising revenue.”
“The Minister for Transport this year cut services, cut staff, raised fares and declared an end to monthly ticket savings just to try and increase the rate of return to Treasury.”
“With a clear simple fare structure an integrated ticketing system could have already been deployed across all modes and across the whole state; remember it’s been in development for over two years already. But the Minister’s lack of real world experience, her fear of negative news reports and a desire to meet treasury’s irrational demands has left the residents of NSW paying a billion dollars and waiting years for a limited and already outdated system.”said Mathew Hounsell