Payment system Motu Move is finally active on Greater Christchurch buses. Shanti Mathias checks it out \u2013 and wonders how long it will take people to start using it.<\/p>\n
As I held my debit card to the reader it made a satisfying two-toned beep as the payment went through, louder than what I\u2019d experienced before. A brief thrill ran through me: so this is what it felt like to use a card payment system which had been carefully planned, and cost the country $1.4bn. That might seem expensive for a payment system, but making the background digital systems for an upgrade of this scale was bound to be tricky. On Monday, the system was finally available to the people of Greater Christchurch, and I was one of the first people to use it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I have a big collection of public transport cards: Auckland\u2019s Hop card, Wellington\u2019s Snapper, Christchurch\u2019s Metro, regional New Zealand\u2019s Bee card, as well as transport cards for Abu Dhabi, Sydney, Hong Kong and Guangzhou.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The \u201cNational Ticketing Scheme\u201d, now known as Motu Move, was first conceived in 2009. Motu Move will mean the same card can be used to pay for all transport systems in New Zealand. My handful of cards will be defunct but there are other advantages. Paying fares with Paywave will make it easier for non public transport freaks to use the bus anywhere in the country without local transport cards. Not dealing with cash and top-ups will make buses more efficient too. Auckland has already put contactless payments in place (although they\u2019re not yet integrated with Motu Move), proving the benefits of the system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The full set of transport cards available in Aotearoa (Image: Shanti Mathias)<\/p>\n
I first wrote about Motu Move about a year ago<\/a>, brimming with optimism. \u201cMotu Move is (almost) here,\u201d read the headline. My 2024 optimism was slightly premature.\u00a0 A trial period began on Christchurch\u2019s 29 bus and 35% of people on the route were using their debit cards to pay. But the rollout in Temuka and Timaru was delayed, then delayed again.\u00a0<\/p>\n I wrote another article about Motu Move<\/a> in July, fixating on the green-blue branding \u2013 at one point having a back-and-forth with my editor about whether it was \u201cturquoise\u201d or \u201caquamarine\u201d. When I emailed NZTA\u2019s comms person in charge of Motu Move, the dates were hazy, alluding to a \u201crevised regional rollout\u201d \u2013 hardly a phrase to inspire confidence. One News reporter Justin Hu, also doggedly on the Motu Move beat, reported that a review had found<\/a> \u201ca very high likelihood of further significant delays\u201d. Instead of being completed by the end of 2026, it would take until at least the end of 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n Clearly, someone was making decisions about Motu Move. In September, the plans to begin the rollout in Timaru and Temuka were suspended<\/a> in favour of Christchurch. Signs with words like \u201ccoming soon\u201d showed up in Christchurch\u2019s bus interchange. In the last few weeks distinctive Motu Move turquoise terminals appeared in Christchurch buses, taped over so they wouldn\u2019t be used prematurely.\u00a0<\/p>\n I caught the bus in Christchurch last week and couldn\u2019t remember how much money was left on my Metro card. I leaned forward as I tagged on, trying to see the remaining balance on the driver\u2019s screen before it disappeared, reflecting that I wouldn\u2019t have to worry about topping my card up once the tape was removed from the Motu Move terminals. I got off the bus in Lyttelton, the harbour sparkling \u2013 definitely aquamarine \u2013 the colour a reminder of the Motu Move branding. All the signs around me were pointing to public transport payment systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n So perhaps this provides some context for why I was so excited to finally hear the beep of acknowledgement from my debit card against the Motu Move card reader on the bus in Christchurch. I chose a nice long bus route, all the way from my suburb of Spreydon to New Brighton on the east side of town.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n At least 40 people got on and off the bus on the way there and back. Some waved their gold cards. Others turned to press their normal Metro cards against the reader next to the bus driver. Someone counted out a handful of clinking coins. One person even tagged on twice \u2013 once for herself, once for her adult son \u2013 not realising that she could have used the Motu Move reader instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n I had expected, if not chaos, at least some modicum of interest in the new system. But all I got was people slinking to their seats with their headphones on, as the suburbs of Christchurch rolled past. Did they not realise how many millions of government dollars, meetings with banks, spilled ink of journalists and action points with global payment consultants Cubic had been involved in getting this far? Were they not aware they were passing a piece of technology so fresh its Wikipedia page<\/a> had been edited the night before? (And not even by me!)<\/p>\n At the end of November 10, 1293 people had tagged on to Christchurch buses using Paywave or digital wallets. That\u2019s a very small portion of the approximately 34,000 people who take a bus in Greater Christchurch each day.\u00a0<\/p>\n The benefit of the new payment system will be seen in the long term, as people get used to it. Public transport payment systems aren\u2019t supposed to be thrilling, even when they\u2019re novel: they\u2019re simply meant to work. While fare caps and free transfers work (as long as you tag on with the same card), the fact that the Motu Move system can\u2019t yet accommodate concessions like child or Total Mobility fares will likely delay adoption.\u00a0<\/p>\n Physical Motu Move cards will eventually replace Metro cards in Christchurch and there will be a place to tag off the bus as well as tag on. (Bus fares in Christchurch are currently a flat $3 adult fee.) Metro has updated its website<\/a> to include information about Motu Move, but lists paying with a Metro card as a preferred option \u201cfor regular travellers\u201d.<\/p>\n It would have been nice to write a \u201cchaos on the streets as Christchurch unveils new bus payment system\u201d story, but the hope is that all of the delays and the extra funding means Motu Move will work from the get go as it is sloooooooowly rolled out over the next two years. Once Metro cards are phased out, people will have to become used to the system. The exact timeline for the rollout remains vague \u2013 but maybe, by the end of 2027, no one will be thinking about it at all, except me.\u00a0<\/p>\nChristchurch\u2019s 29 bus was the first route to have Motu Move installed. (Image: Shanti Mathias)<\/p>\n
People in Christchurch boarding the bus (Image: Shanti Mathias)<\/p>\n