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Speaker 1: Wellington is getting ready to ditch the Snapper cards. This

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Speaker 1: is to get on your public transport, on your buses instead,

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Speaker 1: you'll just need to tap and go with your debit

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Speaker 1: card or maybe your phone. It comes after the roll

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Speaker 1: out of the separate national ticketing solution that's been delayed

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Speaker 1: again sixteen years after first getting sign off. Do you

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Speaker 1: believe that? Of course you do. It's only just reached

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Speaker 1: christ Church and the capital is just sick of waiting apparently.

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Speaker 1: Darren Ponter is Chair of Greater Wellington Regional Council with

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Speaker 1: me tonight, Darren, good evening, good evening. What's wrong with Snapper?

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Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong with Snapper immediately, but it is now

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Speaker 2: because we have been waiting so long, it is now

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Speaker 2: end of life. It is now a product that is

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Speaker 2: soon not to be supported by the vendor, which means

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Speaker 2: that if it falls over, we don't have any basis

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Speaker 2: to collect fares. That puts us at extreme risk. And

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Speaker 2: this credit debit card system is basically an insurance policy

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Speaker 2: for us.

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Speaker 1: Now, why isn't it the main policy? Why can't you

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Speaker 1: use a qui debit card tap and go thing anyway?

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Speaker 2: Well, we probably would have, but as you said it

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Speaker 2: started sixteen years ago, this conversation, and I suppose you know.

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Speaker 2: The flip side to this is I am certainly sick

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Speaker 2: of telling Wellingtonians that they can't have what Auckland has

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Speaker 2: and what they can get when they get off the

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Speaker 2: plane in Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney. It has just got ridiculous.

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Speaker 2: And so we have made the call to lay out

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Speaker 2: a bit of money ourselves and get this system in

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Speaker 2: place in Willington by the thirtieth of March this year.

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Speaker 1: How much does it cost to enable it to tap?

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Speaker 1: You have credit card, you debit cards, So that's that's going.

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Speaker 2: To cost us five point five million dollars is a

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Speaker 2: one off, a little bit as a one up payment

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Speaker 2: and for the initial period that we'll have it. Remember,

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Speaker 2: the next ticketing system will hopefully still roll in in

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Speaker 2: about two years time. It will have some of the

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Speaker 2: technology that we are already going to deploy in advance.

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Speaker 1: Why do we need a national ticketing system? You know

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Speaker 1: everyone Well, most people have got a credit card, a

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Speaker 1: debit card or a phone that they can tap and

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Speaker 1: go with.

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Speaker 2: Yep, and quite a lot don't and quite a lot

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Speaker 2: never never will have children, people with concession passes, community

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Speaker 2: services cards, et cetera. But even then, even if you've

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Speaker 2: got a credit card, you need some sophistication in the

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Speaker 2: back end to be able to tell the credit card, oh,

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Speaker 2: that person is a half fair, or that person is

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Speaker 2: a full fair, or that person gets a particular type

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Speaker 2: of discard, et cetera. And that's all about the back end.

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Speaker 1: What proportion of bus users or public transport users in

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Speaker 1: Willington use cash at the moment.

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Speaker 2: A very small number, about three percent, I think the

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Speaker 2: last time I looked, certainly on some services we've taken

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Speaker 2: cash off all together now, so on our express services

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Speaker 2: into the city you can only use the Snapper card

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Speaker 2: at this stage.

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Speaker 1: Right, do you think we'll have this national ticketing system

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Speaker 1: up in place before you guys all get fired.

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Speaker 2: I'm not beating on it. I've been asking every every

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Speaker 2: now and then, I ask how long away is the

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Speaker 2: next ticketing I'm always told in irrespective of when it was,

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Speaker 2: it's two years away. So ask me that again in

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Speaker 2: a year's time, and yats, it will probably still be

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Speaker 2: two years away.

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Speaker 1: And it may not be you. I'm asking, Darren, Thank

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Speaker 1: you dark Darren Font, chair of Greater Wellington Regional Council.

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Speaker 1: For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks.

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Speaker 2: It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio