Commuters could be rewarded with incentives including free coffee to travel at less busy times

Commuters could soon be rewarded with bonuses including free food and coffee if they travel on less congested services. VOTE, HAVE YOUR SAY

Exclusive: Commuters could soon be rewarded with bonuses including discounted fares, free coffees and food if they change their travel times during peak hour to help ease congestion.

News Corp can reveal “tap and go” technology in all the major capital cities including Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane has the capacity to read passenger movements in real time and encourage smarter and more efficient ways to travel.

Trials of peak-hour incentives on public transport in some cities overseas have seen a near 20 per cent reduction in peak hour movements.

Mastercard’s vice president of digital and business development Surin Fernando confirmed the company — which oversees many of Australia’s transport payment systems — is in discussions with both public and private transport operators to help get travellers to shift to less congested travel times within peak hour.

“We have the ability to provide offers to customers to drive consumer behaviour,” he said.

He said the technology is available where cities have a contactless transport payment system, for instance Sydney’s Opal network and Melbourne’s Myki network.

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The proposed change could affect those on Sydney’s Opal network.

These rewards could also be offered to those who use Myki cards in Melbourne.

Through Mastercard’s technology Mr Fernando said they can see commuters using their cards or phones to pay “in real time and provide real-time offers.”

Commuters in Sydney can “tap on” for single trips using their debit or credit cards or compatible smartphones on light rail, trains and ferry services.

Rewards could be delivered using a unique offer link or QR code depending on the merchant and how they prefer the offer to be redeemed.

Just this month on Tokyo’s most-crowded subway lines they started offering free food to commuters to reduce peak-hour congestion.

Inducements included handing commuters complimentary tempura and soba if travellers took an earlier train that was less congested.

Japanese commuters are being rewarded with free food if they catch less congested subway services.

While in Chicago rebates have been given to commuters as a form of rewards for travelling on particular transport services to reduce overcrowding.

Mastercard partnered with urban tech accelerator City Digital to pilot what incentives would get Chicago commuters to change their travel patterns.

More than 2000 commuters signed up to receive text alerts which alerted them to peak travel times and gave incentives if sports fans opted to take a less busier travel option.

This resulted in commuters dropping off by 17.5 per cent between 5pm and 6pm.

Transport for NSW’s co-ordinator general Marg Prendergast said that are investing $123 million in a world-leading multimodal transport management system, the Intelligent Congestion Management Program to improve “reliability and reduce the cost of congestion.”

“We need people to rethink the way they commute, shift from driving cars to taking public transport and travelling outside of the busiest of the peak from 8-9am and 5-6pm,” she said.

Sydney commuters can currently get rewards including half price fares after eight paid journeys in a week, daily and weekly travel caps and a special Sunday capped fare.

They can also get a 30 per cent discount for travelling outside of the peaks on the rail network.

Commuters could be incentivised to catch less congested travel services and be rewarded with items such as free coffees.

If this is implemented, travellers would only be rewarded if they use their smartphones for transactions, not their Opal cards as it does not have the technology.

While in Melbourne discounts include a $6 cap for all-day unlimited travel in zones 1 and 2 and free journeys if you tap off before 7.15am on a weekday.

But social analyst David Chalke said offers incentives was a “bandaid solution” to the nation’s lack of transport infrastructure to cope with bursting city growth.

“It’s symbolic of the failure of transport policy,” he said.

“We have expanded the population without building the infrastructure to harbour it.

“Whether people will travel our of peak times will be determined by the flexibility of their hours, it will work if people have flexi time.”

He said the ultimate resolution was to build more public transport solutions.

In Sydney more than 1 million journeys have now been paid for by customers tapping on and off with a debit or credit card or their compatible smartphone or wearable device.

A pilot of this payment technique has been trialled on some Melbourne tram services.

This means commuters do not need to use an Opal or Myki to “tap on” and ride on compatible services.

Melbourne and Sydney were found to have worse traffic congestion than New York and less comprehensive public transport networks than Lisbon, the Urban Mobility Index found last month.

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INCENTIVES

— Tokyo, Japan. Commuters given free tempura and soba for travelling on less congested subway services.

— Chicago, US. Commuters signed up to a trial alerting them to peak travel times to baseball games. If they opted to take a less busier option they were given a discounted fare.

Originally published as Commuters could be rewarded with incentives including free coffee to travel at less busy times