The company behind the Rejsekort is being accused of misleading customers over the price of using the electronic travel card, metroXpress reports today.
Rejsekort's website states that commuters using the card to travel up to 38 times a month on Zealand stand to benefit from switching over from monthly passes and discounted ten-ride Klippekort.
But according to calculations made by metroXpress, commuters are actually better off buying a monthly pass if they travel to work and back on public transport more than 15 times in a month.
Their calculations show that the Rejsekort can cost between 200 kroner and 800 kroner more a month than a monthly pass when travelling to and from work in a typical 18-day work month.
The revelations drew criticism from Michael Randropp, the head of commuter association Pendlerklubben, who argued that the cost of using the Rejsekort needed to be more clearly advertised.
“Nowhere does it state that commuters in the Copenhagen area adding extra trips because they can quickly make the Rejsekort more expensive than using a monthly pass,” Randropp told metroXpress.
The price variations are due to the fact that the Rejsekort’s prices are currently the same as those of a Klippekort. Commuters travelling long distances, over more zones, therefore end up paying much more than a monthly pass if they make just a few more trips every month.
Commuters who now travel using a monthly pass will have to wait until 2014 before Rejsekort offers a similar electronic product.
Responding to the criticism, Thomas Boe Bramsen, Rejsekort's head of marketing, argued that there was no need to add warnings for commuters currently using monthly passes.
“We have not publicly marketed the travel card toward customers in the capital area. We've only done it through the traffic companies' membership programs,” Bramsen told metroXpress. “There we state that there is currently an offer in which customers can travel at Klippekort rates.”
The Rejsekort system has been beset by a raft of technical issues that have delayed its introduction by years and nearly doubled its cost, which now stands at a projected 1.4 billion kroner. The electronic travel card is currently being rolled out on Zealand and in northern Jutland, but some areas of the country have announced they are hesitant to adopt it out of fears that it is too costly.
