Transport Minister Chris Steel: “We are entering a very exciting period for public transport in Canberra.” Photo: Ian Bushnell.

From 20 September, when the transition to the new public transport ticketing system begins, travel on buses and suburban trains will be free of charge.

Transport Minister Chris Steel today (5 September) announced the date for the switch to MyWay+, which is expected to take at least six weeks.

Mr Steel said that significant progress had been made over the past few months in the design, development and testing of the new MyWay+ system, which meant installation could now begin.

“This involves removing the existing MyWay equipment on board buses and installing new MyWay+ validators both on buses and along the light rail lines,” he said.

In addition to the decommissioning of the old MyWay system, from Friday 20 September the NXTBUS real-time systems will no longer be available.

This applies on board buses, at bus stops and stations, as well as via SMS, but timetable information will still be available online and at major stops and interchanges.

Next stop information will still be available on trains, on board and at stops.

Mr Steel said a trial of the system would also be carried out with more than 200 Canberrans providing feedback on the new system and its journey planning feature.

Bus and tram services will continue to operate according to their timetable and frequency, but passengers will not have to pay for the transition period to the MyWay+ service.

“The free travel period has been planned as part of the ‘hard transition’ to the new MyWay+ system,” Mr Steel said.

“We made this decision early on to avoid any confusion among the public that might arise if the two systems were at different stages of commissioning and decommissioning.”

He added that the free travel period, during which passengers would no longer have to switch their card on and off, would give the community time to prepare for the change and encourage people to try bus and light rail travel as part of their daily commute.

Mr Steel urged Canberra residents to register their MyWay cards.

He added that several thousand cards have been registered over the past few weeks, but there are still several unregistered.

“It will take you just two minutes to register your card and when MyWay+ launches in November it will be much easier to transfer your balance or request a refund,” Mr Steel said.

“We are entering an incredibly exciting period for public transport in Canberra.

“MyWay+ seamlessly integrates buses, light rail and real-time information to get you where you need to go. Powerful journey planning, live service updates and more ways to pay put the power of public transport in your hands.”

The government says the easiest way to plan your journey is to use the Transport Canberra Journey Planner or view timetable information. Visit Transport Canberra for updates and further information.