TRAVEL smartcards, such as NSW’s Opal and Victoria’s Myki, were supposed to be a tap-on tap-off timesaver for commuters as they dispensed with the need to stand in endless queues for paper tickets.

But the opposite is happening with frustrated passengers forced to queue for even longer as a promised roll out of Opal card top-up machines has, just like a rush hour train, come to a grinding halt.

Under questioning from the Greens, Minister for Roads, Maritime and Freight Duncan Gay was forced to admit on Monday that no new Opal top-up machines had been installed anywhere in NSW for almost five months.

With the number of machines in operation stalled at 102, this means little more than half of Sydney’s railway stations have the machines. Staff are unable to manually recharge Opals, so if a customer is caught short they are then forced to trek to a local participating retailer, to top up.

The lack of progress on Opal machines is despite Mr Gay telling Parliament last October that the number of machines installed at railway stations, ferry wharves and light rail stops would rise to 350 “by early 2016” and, “this rollout will provide coverage for about 99 per cent of customers”.

Greens NSW MP and the party’s transport spokeswoman, Mehreen Faruqi, said it was a “sad state of affairs” but Mr Gay claimed installing top-up machines was “wasting resources”.

UNBELIEVABLE

News.com.au has observed long queues, often more than 10 people deep even outside of rush hour, at Sydney’s Central station for the single top-up machine located on each concourse.

Meanwhile, banks of paper ticket machines go unused.

Event manager Alissa Raw was the 11th person in the queue for a top-up machine at Central. The person behind her, seemingly exasperated, had given up waiting and stormed off muttering.

“It’s unbelievable, I have to wait all the time,” said Ms Raw. “They’ve been really bad at rolling them out. I miss buses all the time because of waiting in line.

“They need more machines.”

Ms Raw said she preferred to use the machines as she didn’t want to set up the card for online auto top-ups, which carry a minimum $40 recharge at a time.

Student Francesca Cosh said in Melbourne there were “plenty” of machines, unlike in Sydney. “They have one machine for Opal but three for [paper] tickets yet no one uses those.”

‘SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS’

Ms Faruqi told news.com.au that with most paper tickets having been retired in NSW in January more people than ever were now on Opal.

“[The government] were quite happy to get rid of ticket-selling staff and rely on external retailers and machines. Now they can’t even provide enough machines for people to use.

“We are now at day 76 of 2016 and we are yet to see even one additional top-up machine,” she said.

“For a government that claims to be expanding transport access for people, this is a pretty sad state of affairs.”

Retailers that recharged were often located away from stations and auto top-ups, Ms Faruqi said, “simply won’t cut it” for people on unsteady incomes.

A survey conducted late last year found every retailer offering top-ups around Sydney’s Circular Quay station forced customers to pay a surcharge of recharging on their credit or debit card sometimes amounting to 80 per cent of the minimum top-up amount.

“Perhaps instead of spending billions of dollars on privatising our rail system, they could make sure that public transport users are able to top up without waiting in a long queue,” Ms Faruqi said.

WASTING RESOURCES

Speaking in Parliament, Mr Gay said a further 255 machines would be installed “soon” with at least one at most Sydney Ferries wharves and light rail stops, the majority of Sydney Trains stations and the busier NSW TrainLink stations.

He said the majority of Opal card users chose to top up at more than 2,100 retailers — including Woolworths and 7-Eleven stores — while eight per cent did so online. Customers can also top up online manually but the minimum is a steep $40. He defended the low number of machines by saying about 13 per cent of adults with Opal cards topped up online, as did two per cent of seniors.

“Putting in any more when this category is used by only two per cent of cardholders would indicate that the Minister was wasting resources,” he said.

However, the experience in Melbourne — where most stations have several recharge points — would suggest that the more top-up machines you install, the more people will use them.

Figures from Public Transport Victoria, for the three months to September 2015 and supplied to news.com.au, showed 65 per cent of passengers chose to top up their Myki cards at stations compared to just one-in-five who opted for retailers.

Transport for NSW would not comment on why the rollout of Opal card top-up machines had stopped but said “there’s more on the way”.

benedict.brook@news.com.au