Australian transit riders have figured out ways to beat the transit system’s “free trip” scannable cards and save about $20/week, much of it thanks to a public challenge from New South Wales Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian, reports Mashable.
“I want people to beat the system,” Berejiklian said in September. “I want people to find the savings because they are there to be had.”
It’s not clear if this is an undesired outcome from the minister’s taunt or if it’s exactly what the official had in mind, as it is causing Sydney riders to get much closer with its transit system, which might have been the whole point.
Although Mashable describes it as a hack, there’s nothing technological about the effort. It involves using the system’s definition of trip duration and distance and then literally running between specific nearby stations to rack up the needed number of trip scans without actually having to ride the train. This activates the free weekly transits, which is where the savings comes from.
“The latest version, which was attempted on Thursday by the group behind the Opal App, created to monitor your Opal Card spending, uses two train stations not in the city district, this means that each tap is counted as a journey rather than a trip. The sprint (on foot) between Erskineville Station and Macdonaldtown Station means they (gamed) the system in 30 minutes,” the story said. “Why these stations? ‘Erskineville station and Macdonaldtown station are perfect for this hack as they are fairly close to each other and have Opal readers accessible without gates,'” the participants said in a YouTube posting.
“An exercise plan that helps your hip pocket, brilliant. We look forward to watching the Monday morning mad dash of frugal Sydney Opal users trying to save their lunch money.”
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