snapped? (wha)

It’s been a couple weeks since we last checked in on Snap­per.

The Snap­per rol­lout has con­tin­ued apace, and some of us haven’t used our old ten-trips for two whole weeks! (Well, we were excited about this, any­way.)

More and more people are board­ing buses armed with the cards; and more and more buses (and their drivers) are ready to take them.

And in the mean­time we’ve learnt many things. (Read on for more.)

• From the Cap­it­al Times, we have con­firm­a­tion from Charles Mon­heim (the “depart­ing Gen­er­al Man­ager” of Snap­per) that the chip used in Snap­per is unequi­voc­ally NOT the same as the com­prom­ised MiFare. Good news, but you did­n’t see it on the Snap­per web­site.
• From the Go Wel­ling­ton Bus web­site, we found a video of the cor­rect way (con­firmed by our earli­er exper­i­ence) to tag on and tag off (hint: hold the card steady, don’t wave it). We have to won­der why this video also isn’t on the Snap­per site.
• From a Snap­pette on yes­ter­day’s bus com­mute we find that drivers are now instruc­ted to let Snap­per-present­ing com­muters ride for free on non-Snap­per enabled buses – wel­come news for the many people who have been caught out by this. Again, why isn’t this news on the Snap­per web­site?
• From Zoom­in, a use­ful map of where to go to buy your Snap­per card. Dare we say this should be on the Snap­per web­site?
• From Poneke’s web­site, an email from the head of Go Wel­ling­ton Bus explain­ing some of the pecu­li­ar com­muter user exper­i­ences repor­ted by vari­ous people. It really does sound like the GPS and tag­ging on prob­lems repor­ted on vari­ous blogs and news sites will be sor­ted out as every­one, drivers, com­muters, and retail­ers, get used to the new sys­tem. Plus, as repor­ted by some, it is pos­sible for two people to ride on the one Snap­per! (At least this will be on the Snap­per web­site in time; it’s simply not a fea­ture they want to pub­li­cise right now.)

We’ve also been watch­ing what Wel­ling­ton people have to say about Snap­per. And you’ve been say­ing a lot. For a fla­vour, here’s a selec­tion:

• ethel_aardvark points out that you may be bet­ter off buy­ing some 10-trip tick­ets now, giv­en the upcom­ing tick­et price rise;
• farah­mexx has some Snap­per related chuckles at the expense of her flat­mate, who thought fish was on the menu for din­ner;
• red­shoe­girl wishes the rol­lout could have been smooth­er;
• Steph­en reports that, yes, you can register anonym­ously, which should mit­ig­ate some of the pri­vacy con­cerns expressed in many places;
• Queen Bee down at The Hive won­ders why Auck­land has­n’t got Snap­per already; and later she sug­gests that usage has now reached 10%;
• Jonath­an has read the Snap­per T&Cs, and does­n’t like what he reads – Snap­per retains retains the own­er­ship of the card, but take no respons­ib­il­ity for its fail­ure;
• Maudlinrose, like many, is wound up by Snap­per­’s fees;
• And Poneke remains the best source of news about Snap­per (aside from the Wel­ling­tonista, er, right?)

So it may be a little while before all is sun­shine and kit­tehs in Snap­per land. For example, we’d like to get res­ol­u­tion on some of the char­ging issues we’ve seen, such as the strange dis­par­ity in char­ging between inward and out­ward two-zone jour­neys. But we think things seem def­in­itely to be headed in the right dir­ec­tion.

What do YOU think?