Hi
I would like to confirm that opal run does not work any more?
I did 8 transfers this morning however it only showing as 1 journey.
Can anyone confirm this
thank you
Opal Run do not work
LW0rldtraveller on 21/03/2016 - 09:19
Related Stores
Comments
Yes.
Yes someone has mentioned it in another forum.
I can also confirm first hand that it is in force :(ponyhearts on 19/03/2016 - 19:33 new
One of the hacks has been closed. Changes coming 21 March 2016https://www.reddit.com/r/sydney/comments/4b2cyl/crackdown_on…
Under the new “break of journey” business rules the following changes have been made:
Customers travelling on trains, light rail, bus and ferries will now be able to “break their journey” up to 7 times on the same mode of transport. If they resume their journey on each occasion within 60 minutes, it will be considered 1 overall journey for the purposes of the Weekly Travel Reward.
Train and Light Rail Customers who “break their journey” will now be able to resume their journey, within 60 minutes on the same mode of transport, at one of the 9 closest station or 9 closest light rail stops (“as the crow flies” straight-line distance) to where they Tapped Off.
First hand? Did you try it already?? Haha that was quick!
Yes …
Felt like an idiot… I'm sure the rail staff were laughing…
How generous of them to allow you to "resume your journey" haha
Lol wow you're so bothered in the rain and all. But yes, the hack has been closed and it was announced before the weekend.
So instead of 3 now its 7 ?
I think so - if I'm understanding the reddit post correctly
they just make it longer instead of 4 transfer they make it 8 now. This is much better rather than 10 as previously was mentioned.
Also, it seems they removed the idea of paying the 10 least expensive trips each week, which sounded pretty bad to me.I thought that was all under discussion though; but the ten trip thing was related to ten trips per week instead of eight.
They did not remove the idea. It's still under review and discussion. This is only an intermediate measure to mitigate the issue.
I thought transfers didn't count?
not that transfer but the "loophole" transfer.
opal can only hold 8 trips so if you keep continue using opal for 8x, the next one will counted as new trip.
that hole has been closed now.am i right?
but they have made huge saving over the year. i guess probably close to a thousand dollars or more.
should congratulate them for the efforts~!yeh well now they will just have to catch a bus during lunch like the rest of us
^ Tall Poppy Syndrome.
Opal encouraged them to find such hacks at first. For people who use public transport a lot, it was worth it as Opal was/is much more expensive for those that used to use yearly/quarterly/weekly/travel10 tickets.
It was fun while it lasted :( it was tiring at times but I did enjoy getting a chance to go for a run! I also travel a bit for work so had the opportunity to test most of the hacks! =P
edit: the upside is… it's raining today and it's an excuse not to head out!
I expected more Slazenger shirts in the video from the SportsDirect sales but I guess even OzBargainers dress for work.
Annoying that they implemented this change before fixing the glaringly unfair issue of multi-modal transfers:
Catch a bus, then a train, then another bus and you'll be charged 3 times as though each was an independent fare but only accrue 1 journey towards the Weekly Travel Reward.
Catch a bus, then a bus, then another bus and you'll only be charged for 1 fare across the furthest stops you boarded or alighted.
Catching a train or ferry will be a luxury reserved exclusively for Sundays now…
They are looking to implement a scheme where you get a rebate of $2 for multi mode travel. After 8 trips you will get 70% off your fare for the rest of the week. Whether they will end up implementing this I can't say but I can tell you this is what they are looking to roll out.
What is your source? are you associated with Opal Card - NSW Government?
I had a minor, temporary association with opal card, but I do not work nor have a permanent association with either the opal card or NSW govt. However my info is good.
@bym: Yes that is part of it, and being raised to Aes Sedai. Plus I have a hunky warder husband who happens to be a King.
Why does it have to be so complex? Why not treat all transport the same? There must be efficiencies to be gained for both the government and consumer by making it simple…
It's because not all modes cost the same; if they allowed transfers between modes to be charged as a single trip they will have to raise all the bus and train fares.
@CLoSeR: But if that was their only consideration then they wouldn't charge $2.50 all day on Sundays.
Not saying you're wrong, just saying there's clearly more to it than just how much the individual modes of transport cost.
Efficiency has never been the government's concern.
I wonder if any entrepreneurs are going to try and setup an opal run for Pyrmont/Star.
It hasn't yet been made uneconomical for someone to run, if they run for a team. Someone on reddit mentioned that one's time would be worth more, but what if you don't calculate it as one person running with one opal card.
They just need to get at least 3 cards with them to return to normal profitability and make some additional money. Alternatively with groups already doing this, they just need (2.33 times more customers, rounded up to the nearest integer).
Sadly, I never got to try the loophole. But now you can travel almost 8 hours by bus for $4.50. So now the challenge is to leave work every 55 minutes or so to go one stop and then if you leave work a little earlier you can save $4.50. Then start looking for a new job.
you can take the bus to attend job interviews
If you are able to leave work every 55 minutes, you would be able to complete 8 journeys a day, each of them being 1 hour apart and still pay the loophole fare. They did not close this loophole supposedly because they think most people won't be able to leave work every hour to take a bus trip.
only for single mode of transport, otherwise it won't be just $4.50.
I presume Macdonaldtown/Erskineville still works ?
Nope:
Train and Light Rail Customers who “break their journey” will now be able to resume their journey, within 60 minutes on the same mode of transport, at one of the 9 closest station or 9 closest light rail stops (“as the crow flies” straight-line distance) to where they Tapped Off.
yes but these stations are on a different line.
Crows don't fly along train lines:
at one of the 9 closest station or 9 closest light rail stops (“as the crow flies” straight-line distance)
Now the new possible loophole here is to find the closest distance between a station and its 10th closest station to start the new journey.
You will need at least two Opal cards.Assume each station is ~500m apart (which is pretty close btw).
9 * 500m = 4.5km
10th station therefore should be 5km away at least.
However, you might be in a lucky spot where you just happen to have 10 stations around you equidistance from where you are.. and then the 11th station is like 3km away. Well, 3km < 5km!
Closest you could get to having a "reasonable" distance 10th station is probably Sydney CBD. I can't think of anywhere else in Sydney where you'd be surrounded by 10 stations..
@Neoika: You know what, I've seriously thought of that before.. it's just NFC technology right? Is it possible at all, do you know? It surely wouldn't be as simple as having a NFC phone.. there's probably some security behind it (you would assume)?
@illumination: yes there's security behind it and only opal themselves can create an app to simulate opal cards on NFC enabled phones.
Can we instead do one bus trip $2.10 then wait for a hour then hoop on again? doing this eight times?
This is still legit.
Yep did it yesterday. Student rates. 8 journeys for $7.50.
Feel pretty stupid getting on the bus and getting off 100m down the road but hell, my week would otherwise cost me $30Have been doing that for the past year. Great fun.
Sydney's system is stupid…
Still works. For now…
I heard from the news, there will be changes again in couple months
So 8 journeys and the rest of the week is free. People forget that Sunday travelis $2.50 ALL DAY. So how much of a saving do you really make?
OPAL need to iron out a few more issues. Central station had barriers that were not working. Transit officers calling up stations to confirm barriers not working. People having to call operators to make sure they are not overcharged. Such a blood hassle.
I save around $17 a week doing cheaper bus journeys on a Monday and Tuesday to use up the 8 journeys. Over 40% off what I would normally pay per week for my train commute.
Well, me and my wife normally take a bus to the train station and take a train to work which is
$2.1 (bus) + $4.86 (train on Peak hour) = $6.96 which equates to $55.68 or $111.36 per week for the two of us.What we have been doing is that we have "Monday Morning Opal Cards" which we uses for the morning trip to work only (this costs $6.96 each) and uses 2 new opal cards to complete 8 journeys for $15 each (I normally share this run with my colleagues, only have to run once every few weeks).
From Monday after work, we start using the opal cards that have reached 8 journeys.
Total cost for us will be $6.96 * 2 + $15 * 2 = $43.92 which is $67.44 savings per week, or $3237.12 per year (assuming 48 weeks of full time work).
This is how much it saves.
It is also ridiculous how much it costs to use public transport nowadays.
It might be too late now but you could've saved a further $2.10 per week and some running by using your Weekly Reward Opal Cards for the $2.10 Monday morning bus trip so long as an hour passed between tapping off the bus and commencing Opal Running.
Wow that was smart!
I have to ask: How did you get the 8 journeys so quickly and how will you get the 8 journeys now with the loophole closed (unless the loophole doesn't affect you).
The method used was to run between pyrmont and the star light rail stations. Every 5th transfer becomes a new journey, we only had to run 25 times per week to get 8 journeys.
With the loophole closed, we are probably gonna have a few more "coffee runs" per day and do it every other hour.
Big picture. Opal is just a big hassle to communters all round Sydney tap onnnn tap offfff, confuse charges. Bring back the options for us using paper ticket Weekly, fortnightly or monthly and don't charge people per trip.
Watched Channel 7 and 9 news yesterday: apparently, the loophole isn't broken per se, it's just that the estimated running time has gone up from ~1hr to ~5.5hrs
—> cue enterprising people with time on their hands to do group runs.Melbournian here;
why is this so complicating? Why can't they just have a 2 hour fare and a daily cap if traveled longer then 2 hours instead of this weird system…thank god i live in Melbourne!
| why is this so complicating?
Becasue the transport minister n his midgets has the power to play you Sydneynian with the opal system from then on. Technically no body has the power can challenge it
I've heard Melb trips are/were even free. Sounds like Melb is great if you don't mind delays and being late.
yea the CBD is free to travel in all trams… Very convenient for tourists/those that live in city.
But once you go out of the 'zone' you have to touch on.
http://www.victoriaharbour.com.au/news-and-events/news-and-e…
Fellow Melbournian here, and I wouldn't say MyKi is anything to brag about. At. All!
Myki has had its issues, but you can't really fault the fare structure.. 2 zones and if you travel in both, you only get charged zone 1. When I was in Sydney, travelling 2 stops by train in the cbd (walking distance of 2km) cost $4-5. And then if you switch to a bus, 10 minutes later, you get more charges
If you travel in both zones you only get charged zone 1? What?
I recall the 2 hour thing being annoying. Only good if you were travelling heaps within a 2 hour period, otherwise rubbish for most people I would imagine.
The new structure with myki I don't recall being good or bad. I think it was about $5.50? For a ride to the city from about 15-20km away which is a bit more than Sydney's equivalent.
Yep, only charged one zone max.
See http://ptv.vic.gov.au/tickets/metropolitan-myki-fares-2016/
Click on myki money, and look at the fare table.The 2 hour is actually value if you change modes of transport, e.g. Bus and train. In Sydney, that's 2 fares, from my experience.
@kirynflare: Ah I can't disagree with that (2 hours good for bus + train compared to current Opal system)
But surely if you touch zone 1 and 2 then you'll be charged for zone 2, since it is more expensive than zone 1?
Or is that what you mean? You won't get charged for zone 1 + 2, but just zone 2. But that's just logical surely?
Isn't this good if you can transfer instead of having to start a new journey each time. What sort of commute do you have with 8 transfers? That's crazy.
Would be really good for hop-on hop-off tourists doing sightseeing in CBD
Whole day sightseeing for $2.10, that ripoff sydney explorer bus will be out of business soonNo,you will pay $4.5 for doing like this.
$2.10 they start and finish in CBD
I have a colleague at work that would do this as part of his long morning runs (he's stupidly fit) and confirmed it no longer works.
I'm fortunate enough to be able to get buses out the front of my office that stop around the back of the building, so can pop out each hour to get another trip on the card. Cuts my weekly cost from around $40 to $22. No doubt that will be the next thing they shut off!
Sucked in to all you rorters.
first world problem!