Auckland Transport has repaid more than $400,000 to passengers overcharged by faulty bus card readers, including one commuter stung for $433.
A timing synchronisation fault in a "small number" of card readers affected about 19,500 journeys made by 14,400 passengers, the public transport agency told 1News.
The Commerce Commission is assessing whether to investigate, and nearly $48,000 is still owed to 1615 people Auckland Transport (AT) can’t track down.
The glitch comes as delays to the $1.4bn national Motu Move system leave Auckland and Wellington reliant on the ageing HOP and Snapper that have both recently faced issues.
AT executive group manager of network planning and performance Richard Harrison apologised to affected passengers for the overcharging issues.
“We recognise that each affected customer was charged more than they should have been, we are sorry for that and have refunded 90% of affected customers,” he said.
“This technology issue occurred within the ticketing system. While problems can sometimes happen in systems of this scale, that does not change our responsibility to put things right.”
The 14,400 passengers affected by the glitch made up about 1.2% of the 1.24 million who paid by contactless card or device over the period where it was a problem.
The fault caused some card readers to record tag-on and tag-off times out of sync, according to AT. As a result, the system pieced some journeys together wrongly and charged default fares as if a user hadn't tagged on or off properly at all.
Contactless payments on AT services launched in November 2024.
AT said the fault may also have affected a small number of SuperGold cardholders who tagged on using HOP cards around 9am.
Ferry and bus commuter charged $433 too much
The worst-affected customer, a regular ferry and bus user, was overcharged about $433 across 17 journeys. AT refunded that passenger the full $562.60 charged for those trips.
From today, bus, train, and ferry users in Auckland are able to use contactless debit and credit cards to get onboard. (Source: 1News)
The highest charge on a single journey was about $72, for a ferry and bus trip that should have cost about $29.50.
AT are refunding every affected trip in full, including the correct fare, which means its $450,000 repayment bill was larger than the amount actually overcharged.
The bill comes to nearly a single day’s fare takings, with AT collecting $204.5m in fare revenue in the last financial year, an average of about $558,000 a day, the agency said.
So far, AT has refunded more than $404,000, as the remaining $47,800 is owed to customers whose automatic refunds failed, typically because their card had expired.
"Because contactless payment customers travel anonymously, AT does not hold the personal information to contact these customers directly," Harrison said.
"Customers have up to six years to make a claim by contacting AT to have their refund assessed and processed.
"We encourage people who may have been affected to get in touch."
AT formally notified the Commerce Commission in July and sent a further update on September 30 about the problems. It said it had not been advised of any investigation.
Fair trading and competition general manager Rebecca McAtamney said "the commission is currently assessing whether an investigation is warranted in this matter."
"When deciding whether to investigate, we assess a range of factors, including the extent of consumer harm, the seriousness of the conduct, and broader public interest.
McAtamney said the commission would also consider whether a business had identified a problem early and taken steps to refund affected consumers.
"Providing refunds does not necessarily prevent further action from being taken."
Ageing systems stay in place until 2027
The Motu Move card will be rolled out across the rest of the country in due course. (Source: 1News)
The problematic readers are part of Auckland's 14-year-old HOP ticketing system, which the region's public transport will rely on until the delayed $1.4 billion national Motu Move system arrives at the end of 2027 - about a year later than first planned.
In the meantime, AT is still spending to keep HOP up and running, including millions on bus driver consoles to replace ageing units dating back to the system’s launch in 2012.
Wellington, which was meant to move to Motu Move in late 2025 but won’t do so until mid-2027, has also faced problems with its ageing system.
In June, Transport Minister Chris Bishop singled out the Snapper system as faltering.
“There are regular reports of Wellingtonians getting on buses, and the system’s just not working, because it is end-of-life, which is why we are replacing it,” he said.
It's the first stage of a national billion dollar plan. (Source: 1News)
Greater Wellington pushed ahead with its own $5.5 million upgrade to accept contactless payments in April, but that upgrade has been hit by a software fault since May that stops some buses from accepting contactless payments, Local Democracy Reporting reports.
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