Opal Discussion and Observations

[Fleet Lists]

When was that?

[stupid_girl]

A sitting government of ether side would need to have a strong backbone even think about announcing a gold Opal daily cap rise without worrying about the outcome of the decision could be

Increasing adult fare is politically easier and also leads to higher revenue gain.

[Randomness]

The fare raise annoys me especially with the also recently announced $60 toll cap. What a lovely way to encourage people onto public transport by raising fares and subsidising Transurban’s monopoly as per usual.

[alleve]

The fare raise annoys me especially with the also recently announced $60 toll cap. What a lovely way to encourage people onto public transport by raising fares and subsidising Transurban’s monopoly as per usual.

FWIW I really don't think the fare raise is turning anyone off public transport. It's still far cheaper than other options

[boxythingy]

Under 3km bus and light rail fares frozen at $3.20 / $2.24 for second year running.

Well they increased the price by too much because they thought it would help with the social distancing aspect of preventing the spread of a certain disease, but it hasn't I'm now counting the days until my ebike investment breaks even.

[TheOpalUser]

Looks like Opal cards get to live for 15 years now https://x.com/theopaluser/status/173038 ... 51078?s=46

[TheOpalUser]

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/do- ... 5eo5u.html

Eighty-six of the 1412 Opal cards issued in December 2012 are still in use today, a Transport for NSW spokesperson told The Sun-Herald.

[Linto63]

Expiry dates for adult cards which was originally 9 years, then 11 years has now been extended to 12 years.

[Glen]

How can you tell the age of your card?

[boxythingy]

Have they been extending the maximum life of the cards because of a current global chip shortage which is affecting Pasmo and Suica in Japan, for example?

[Engineering]

When opal cards were first issued in Dec 2012 the opal system was only operating as a very small trial on a couple of bus routes. It wasn’t till 2014 that it was at all Sydney suburban train stations.

I wonder how many of these original opal cards were issued to genuine travellers on those initial routes, versus collectors or transport buffs.

[boronia]

Was the expiry date predicated on the anticipated life of the card, the chip, or data stability.?

Perhaps testing is finding these issues performing better than anticipated, and thus reducing the need to replace them?

[moa999]

When opal cards were first issued in Dec 2012 the opal system was only operating as a very small trial on a couple of bus routes.

Started on select ferry routes.. and you had to fill in a form and mail it in to get the card.

While I still have my original card, I've shifted the balance to a new one, due to the extra beeps warning of expiry (since multiple times extended)

[Linto63]

Was the expiry date predicated on the anticipated life of the card, the chip, or data stability.?

Possibly, the original nine years was probably a guesstimate as to how long cards would safely last before problems began to arise. With problems not having occurred, it has been decided to extend their lives rather than replace. Same thing happened in Queensland where Go Cards were scheduled to expire after 10 years, but can now be extended for a further 10 years, although does require a visit to a retailer or ticket office. In Victoria, Myki cards are set to expire after four years, but can be extended for a further two years.

[Swift]

A moot point in Victoria as fare evading is a culture in Melbourne.

[boxythingy]

Started on select ferry routes.. and you had to fill in a form and mail it in to get the card.

While I still have my original card, I've shifted the balance to a new one, due to the extra beeps warning of expiry (since multiple times extended)

Neutral Bay Ferry line to be exact, then it was more ferry lines, before being expanded to Trains onto the North Shore line up until Chatswood from Central and Eastern Suburbs line between Bondi Junction and Central from what I remember, then onto the select bus routes.

[matthewg]

Perhaps testing is finding these issues performing better than anticipated, and thus reducing the need to replace them?

There are two lifetimes. One is what the manufacturer says the expected life of the flash chip is and what they will guarantee the life will be. Seems Melbourne went for the 'manufacture guaranteed' life and Sydney and Brisbane went for the 'expected' life.

They can determine the average failure rate of the cards by analysing the backend data and calculating age vs rate of failure. As they know the serial numbers of the cards, they can probably break the life tie down to the batch level - some batches may have lower failures than others. So if your card is of the batch that is showing low failure rates, keep extending it when they are presented, if the batch is showing a high failure rate, expire them out.

There is some need to expire old cards or your readers are stuck supporting old format cards forever. Oyster didn't set an expiration so old MiFare classic cards (like our now 20-year-old cards) can STILL be used. Currently issued cards are MiFare desFires. So the Oyster gates have to support multiple formats forever. (My last few visits to London, I switched to using contactless, lately via my phone - my wife still uses her old Oyster card).

Melbourne could have (but probably hasn't) changed the format of the data on a Myki card multiple times - as they only have to support the old cards for 5 years. So 5 years after a file format change they can finally remove the 'old' code.

[iamthouth]

How can you tell the age of your card?

On the Opal login you can see when cards were ordered for a good estimate.