Electronic travel card project plagued by problems

Expensive all-in-one travel card project doomed to fail and should be shut down, says expert

The oft-delayed Rejsekort, an electronic ticket system intended to cover all modes of public transport throughout the country, will need another tweak after it was revealed that a technical fault in the system would end up cheating commuters who use it more than five times a week.

Regular commuters would end up paying a lot more for their travel than they should. Only those who normally use regular tickets or ten-ride klippekort punch cards would benefit from the new system in its current form, and that means yet another revision to the system, reports Berlingske newspaper.

Since 2006, the project has seen several delays. Last December the transport minister, Hans Christian Schmidt, presented the suppliers with an ultimatum: if they cannot deliver a nationwide system by 2012, he would shut down the whole project.

“This is a scandal,” said Henning N. Jensen, who specialises in payment cards. “The system is missing crucial elements, and basically I believe the project is doomed to fail and it should be shut down.”

Rejsekort, the company behind the new system, has announced that it will face bankruptcy unless it receives 667 million kroner from the state. The project has already cost taxpayers 715 million kroner.

“It is very frustrating that commuters have to wait for the Rejsekort,” said Liberal MP Kristian Pihl Lorentzen. “This is starting to develop into a drawn-out drama. We are doing everything we can politically to speed up the process, but the most important thing is that the card functions properly when people get it. It would be disastrous if it didn’t work in practice when it’s introduced.”

With the latest delays, and the need to fix they newly found flaws, the fully-functional Rejsekort would not be available nationally until 2014.

In a brief comment, Schmidt said that he trusts the Rejsekort will be ready to use by the end of 2012 as promised. “We have come a long way past the point where it makes sense to even talk about ditching the Rejsekort. We will follow through with it.”

The system has been tested on some stretches in the outskirts of Copenhagen for several years.

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