Friday
Jul252008
To Snapper or not to Snapper
Friday, July 25, 2008 at 12:31PM
So for those who aren’t in Wellington, the local busses are starting to completely roll out the new Snapper card payment system. If you’re from the UK think Oyster.
Let me first off say that I REALLY want to like this system, I loved travelling round London on the Oyster, and putting my monthly passes on it, just for the fact that I used to hate the waste of paper that comes from printed tickets, and passes.
However the Wellington snapper system really has a few too many flaws for my liking:
I really hope the system takes off, but I’m not too sure it’ll save me any money yet, there’s not monthly passes on the card yet which means I might have to wait anyway.
There’s also one thing that’s bugged me about the roll out, and this relates to the fact that there seems to be very little training or contingency training carried out. Let me relate the story of today's trip into work:
The bus that picked us up was an older model trolley bus (not known for their reliability), on board was a brand new snapper set up and as we got on we would have the ability to use a Snapper (this is now pretty much the case on 100% of busses in the morning), however it became pretty evident that the snapper hardware was not really up to scratch, I noticed that four times on the way to the city centre (a ride of 20 mins in the morning traffic) the central unit on the drivers console threw a wobbly (screen went fuzzy and at one point made a very loud,very bad hissing sound) resulting in a system reboot. Each reboot took about 2 minutes to get the readers working again.
During one of the crashes the bus stopped at a bus stop to let people on (after all that’s what bus stops are for) the one person who got on wanted to use their snapper card (after all that’s what the snapper is for) also one person wanted to get off, and as you have to record getting off as well as getting on (otherwise I presume you get charged the maximum amount) the guy getting off was a bit pissed off the snapper readers weren’t working (while the machines rebooted)
I have absolutely no problem with the fact that the machine crashed, I don’t mind the fact that the snapper wasn’t usable, however the reaction of the bus driver in this instance was wrong, rather than having a contingency plan, the driver instinctively went defensive about technology, the usual phrases came out “don’t blame me, it’s this damn system”. Where was the training or the processes to do the following.
I can guarantee that a number of people on that bus were thinking the old system was better, remember if you’re working on a replacement system, you’re competing with the existing system, the user experience should be as good if not better than what they currently have otherwise they’ll resent the change.
I hope the teething troubles of snapper get ironed out. I really want the system to work, it’s fast and convenient when it works. All promise at the moment, let’s wait for the delivery.
Let me first off say that I REALLY want to like this system, I loved travelling round London on the Oyster, and putting my monthly passes on it, just for the fact that I used to hate the waste of paper that comes from printed tickets, and passes.
However the Wellington snapper system really has a few too many flaws for my liking:
- I can’t top up online, I have to go to a store and do it, which is really inconvenient for me. I used to buy oyster card top-ups online all the time, sure you have to nominate a station to top up at (can we have this as bus stations) but it means I’m not having to go out of my way to top up.
- I have to pay a service fee for topping up the card, this really really sucks, so badly that I’m thinking of not getting one. Sure it’s a micro amount, (50cents 20 cents), but it means I have to top up with larger amounts rather than carrying around small amounts on the card that would make me feel safer trusting it (I don’t want to loose a card that has $100 on but I wouldn’t mind so much if it only had $10 on it)
- I think the cost here should be on the people who save money from printing less tickets/receipts
I really hope the system takes off, but I’m not too sure it’ll save me any money yet, there’s not monthly passes on the card yet which means I might have to wait anyway.
There’s also one thing that’s bugged me about the roll out, and this relates to the fact that there seems to be very little training or contingency training carried out. Let me relate the story of today's trip into work:The bus that picked us up was an older model trolley bus (not known for their reliability), on board was a brand new snapper set up and as we got on we would have the ability to use a Snapper (this is now pretty much the case on 100% of busses in the morning), however it became pretty evident that the snapper hardware was not really up to scratch, I noticed that four times on the way to the city centre (a ride of 20 mins in the morning traffic) the central unit on the drivers console threw a wobbly (screen went fuzzy and at one point made a very loud,very bad hissing sound) resulting in a system reboot. Each reboot took about 2 minutes to get the readers working again.
During one of the crashes the bus stopped at a bus stop to let people on (after all that’s what bus stops are for) the one person who got on wanted to use their snapper card (after all that’s what the snapper is for) also one person wanted to get off, and as you have to record getting off as well as getting on (otherwise I presume you get charged the maximum amount) the guy getting off was a bit pissed off the snapper readers weren’t working (while the machines rebooted)
I have absolutely no problem with the fact that the machine crashed, I don’t mind the fact that the snapper wasn’t usable, however the reaction of the bus driver in this instance was wrong, rather than having a contingency plan, the driver instinctively went defensive about technology, the usual phrases came out “don’t blame me, it’s this damn system”. Where was the training or the processes to do the following.
- The guy who wanted to get off really wasn’t happy to be waiting, perhaps in order to get people used the snapper, the guy should be allowed to get off without “tagging”, the driver could give him the bus number and there should be an easy way to say “hey I was on this bus, the system wasn’t working when I got off at this stop so I didn’t get to tag off” these cases should hopefully be few and far between that the cases of fraudulently saying someone got off a stop they didn’t would be few and far between, but the user experience wouldn’t be affected. As it stands however I’m pretty sure that the guy thinks the whole snapper thing sucks.
- The bus driver should be informed enough to know that a crash is a crash, the first thing people want to know is how long they’re going to be inconvenienced for, am I going to be waiting 30 minutes? 2 minutes? an hour? they didn’t know, and the bus driver wasn’t informed enough or confident enough to give the reassuring answer they were looking for, “look I’m really sorry, the system will be back in a minute or two, just wait there and it’ll be back” not the best, the customer is still inconvenienced more that the classic paper based system, but they aren’t too worried.
I can guarantee that a number of people on that bus were thinking the old system was better, remember if you’re working on a replacement system, you’re competing with the existing system, the user experience should be as good if not better than what they currently have otherwise they’ll resent the change.
I hope the teething troubles of snapper get ironed out. I really want the system to work, it’s fast and convenient when it works. All promise at the moment, let’s wait for the delivery.
Reader Comments (8)
I agree. No online topups, and charging for topups, is kinda naff. Almost as bad as charging for a loyalty card. I like the london bus system tho - one charge. None of this zones nonsense. But I'd think they could atleast have a UPS or something for the system, so it's not dependant on the bus power supply!!
I'm goin to come out in support of Snapper here, sure there will always be teething troubles but haven't we the geek community be screaming out for a contactless payment solution for years?
I remember playing with the cards years ago, even doing demo's of them with the chips in the back of your phone and looking at models for starting them in New Zealand but it needed a large transport or essential service company to really start driving the usage.
I'll admit I wasn't going to get one until the USB came out so I could top it up myself but now that I have it, I am loving the convenience and hope we start to see more small payment vendors adopt it.
@Karen
Agreed that we really want a great payment system
when i say "I REALLY want to like this system" I mean it.
However I just can't help but be a little disappointed with the execution.
Also welington needs a much more combined system for payment, I can't believe i can't use the same ticket system to buy a ticket to the Hutt Valley, or to Johnsonville as both of these are run by companies other than Go Wellington (even though Hutt Valley is still Stagecoach)
Hopefully all my misgivings will be ironed out, but it seems to me they tried too hard to reinvent the wheel.
Oh and my biggest misgiving is the way that drivers are reacting to the system.
You can feed your Snapper online and need not go to a store. If you feed it online using a credit card there is 2% fee applied. There is a charge of 20 cents and not 50 cents service fee for topping up the card.
The Snapper service in 'GO Wellington' buses are good. The important thing is, the drivers know how to operate the Snapper system. I initially thought - one snapper card, one bus ticket - but the driver told me that I could use one snapper card and pay for two which helped me as we were two passengers (25% off for adult fares in GO Wellington bus is pretty good!)
I think most of the details are up at http://www.snapper.co.nz">www.snapper.co.nz :)
"You can feed your Snapper online and need not go to a store."
Not quite as easy as it should be though, you need equipment.
"You'll need a Snapper Feeder for your Snapper card, or be trialling our a Snapper USB which can be fed directly."
i got the top up fee wrong, 50 cents is the auto topup fee, so I'll edit the post appropriately.
still have some serious quarms about the thing but hey fingers crossed it gets better
This was originally left by Nic Wise:
"I agree. No online topups, and charging for topups, is kinda naff. Almost as bad as charging for a loyalty card. I like the london bus system tho - one charge. None of this zones nonsense. But I’d think they could atleast have a UPS or something for the system, so it’s not dependant on the bus power supply!!"
Originally left by Karen:
I’m goin to come out in support of Snapper here, sure there will always be teething troubles but haven’t we the geek community be screaming out for a contactless payment solution for years?
I remember playing with the cards years ago, even doing demo’s of them with the chips in the back of your phone and looking at models for starting them in New Zealand but it needed a large transport or essential service company to really start driving the usage.
I’ll admit I wasn’t going to get one until the USB came out so I could top it up myself but now that I have it, I am loving the convenience and hope we start to see more small payment vendors adopt it.
Agreed that we really want a great payment system
when i say “I REALLY want to like this system” I mean it.
However I just can’t help but be a little disappointed with the execution.
Also welington needs a much more combined system for payment, I can’t believe i can’t use the same ticket system to buy a ticket to the Hutt Valley, or to Johnsonville as both of these are run by companies other than Go Wellington (even though Hutt Valley is still Stagecoach)
Hopefully all my misgivings will be ironed out, but it seems to me they tried too hard to reinvent the wheel.
Oh and my biggest misgiving is the way that drivers are reacting to the system.