New South Wales will shred the last of its paper ticketing system on public transport by August 1 as it completes its transition to the Opal electronic system.

The state began rolling out its Opal cards in December 2012, minister for transport and infrastructure Andrew Constance says the public has now embraced the electronic system.

“Opal is being used for 95 per cent of all public transport trips,” he says. “Given the enormous success, it is now time to stop running two ticketing systems and move to one convenient system that enables future innovation.”

Opal’s success has prompted the NSW government to begin exploring further avenues in electronic ticketing including the potential for tapping on and off public transport using credit and debit cards. A customer trial for this is set to start in 2017.

Constance has advised those customers who still have not purchased an Opal card will be able to purchase an Opal single trip ticket through top up machines and Opal single bus tickets will become available on-board buses from August 1.

The state government has already started rolling out an awareness campaign to warn customers about the changes before the switch.  

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