Go Wellington sees sense for Wellington City 3 zone passengers... "GO Wellington announces that it will be introducing the GO Wellington 30 Day Pass on 1 October." http://www.gowellingtonbus.co.nz/go-news-events/media-release.php?id=94

This Snapper card has just made me very angry with the Valley Flyer Bus Company. NO more Day Tripper Pass. NO More Transfers NO More Recepts NO more card topup on bus I have to pay a fee to top it up The saving for having a card has been reduced from 25% to 20 percent.

To me this STINKS of 'Lets find a way to make more money off our passengers'

My wife is refusing to even change to it

if it aint broke dont fix it. there was nothing wrong with the go rider cards

I see in the lates Stuff story (http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/2400671/Snapper-explores-online-options) that "NZ Bus will extend Snapper to Valley Flyer buses within the next month. Mr Szikszai expects that will add another 20,000 customers. "I expect to see 100,000 Snapper users quite soon.""

Does that mean the difference (between the existing Snapper customer base plus another 20000 customers) will be made up of all the Gold Pass users who will be forced on to the forthcoming Snapper 30day pass?

No-one goes into specifics about actual prices... I think that a 2-zone single fare, $3 cash, will go from $2.25 to $2.40, yeah? (Please correct me if I'm wrong).I'm an occasional user but always do a return journey, that means I save a massive 20c over a $5 cash daytripper ticket. Factoring in the top-up costs, the cost of the snapper card plus the risk of breaking or losing the card, the extra charges if I ever forget to tag off, the money I have locked up on the card instead of freely spendable, etc etc, it can't possibly be worth it for me to continue using snapper over cash. The 25% discount was never sold as a 'promotional' discount, if it had been fair enough - but I think I've been duped into buying a card that's now uneconomic to use.

Hi

Thanks for the all the comments. As Anuva Bob points out, this change moves from the initial introductory offer for Snapper to getting the same discount rate across the board in Wellington.

Rebecca - apologies for the delay in getting the student card operational. Frankly, the complications around enabling age on student cards and the Snapper system have been greater than we expected. Nevertheless we are very close to releasing this functionality and I am sure that you and your daughter will see this as extremely convenient and great value for money as a result.

Anonymouse - we've recognised the need to make the system more accurate when reading cards. We are in the process of releasing new firmware into the system which will make the cards read more accurately and faster. Pilot tests over the last week have had great feedback from drivers and we look forward to releasing this across the entire Go Wellington fleet next week.

Jo - we have taken disciplinary action regarding the email release some months ago. I agree that is not good enough. I would like to point out that you can use Snapper to buy a daytripper - if you are not getting satisfaction, please drop me a line and let me know.

We think Snapper represents great value for money and is a success story for Wellington. Customer numbers are continuing to grow - we're at 60,000 now in 9 months of operation and we are processing 1 million trips a month. We know from talking with customers that travel is more convenient as a result. We're working hard on making it the best it can be - if you are interested in getting your views to us (I am certainly interested in hearing them) please comment on our blog at www.snapper.co.nz/blog

Cheers

Miki Szikszai CEO - Snapper

Monthly gold pass,platium pass will be on sanppers shortly.eventually everything is on snappers.

Not again! The massive fare increases last time were explained away at the time by the price of oil, which is now cheap again. Doing away with 10-trips added at least another 10% increase. If they're going to raise fares for a third time in a year at least fix the useless snapper card readers- one out of four times it's "please try card again". As for the plans to flog off all the bus depots to property developers, that's straight out of the 1980s asset stripper textbook- where exactly are they going to store all the buses? Or will that become someone else's problem down the line (i.e. ratepayers)

I guess for some people the discount makes it worthwhile however, I still use a gold pass. Much better value for money (for me anyway) and I can use it for more than just travel to and from work. All those extra little trips here and there (i.e. across town at lunchtime) that I don't have to pay any extra for. And I don't have to worry about being over charged either :)

Use the monthly gold bus pass that represent better value until it is TAKEN AWAY.

The whole Snapper system is a bit of a dog. You can use it to buy a coffee, but you can't use it to buy a Daytripper on a bus? Why? I was on their email group, and some idiot sent an email with all recipients CC'd in, thereby sharing my details with 100s of people! Nice!