Keep coins for buskers and travel smarter

EVEN enterprising kerbside buskers in southern city centres now realise cash is no longer king and if you want to be paid quickly, tap and go is the only way to go. Somewhere during the peak of Covid and the spread of mobile phone and smart watch technology, Australia's brightlycoloured currency started to disappear from our wallets and purses.

Watch other punters at the local pub or at the supermarket checkout and you’ll quickly notice the first thing many reach for when it’s time to pay is their phone or offer up their wrist to tap on the screen.

Townsville City Council is on board the cashless drive, currently rolling out it’s $1.05m smart parking meters project across the CBD.

Melbourne’s public transport authority has been using it’s touch-and-go myki system for more than a decade, NSW has introduced automatic gate payments using a credit or debit card and south-east Queensland uses the tap Gocard.

Yet here in Townsville it now seems so old-fashioned to fumble through pockets or bags to find coins to buy a paper ticket to ride on the city’s local bus network, with single trip, daily and weekly options.

The Gocard, which offers at least 30 per cent cheaper fares, has never been introduced in the region and can only be used for travel in Brisbane, Ipswich, Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast.

Translink says Gocards would not be coming to Townsville in the near future, adding that the introduction of new fares and zones on the local bus network in September “paves the way for the future statewide rollout of smart ticketing.”

Hopefully that means the future is en route and all that spare change can be tossed into the busker’s hat once again.