Tynwald this week will be asked to splash out £400,000 on replacing a short-lived bus ticketing system.
A public accounts committee investigation found that serious mistakes were made in the purchase of the Almex ticketing system which is having to be replaced after less than five years.
Almex was introduced at a cost of £381,483 in September 2008, but is now deemed no longer fit for purpose.
Community Culture and Leisure Minister Graham Cregeen will seek Tynwald approval for a replacement system called Ticketer at a cost of £400,000.
The new system will allow for the use of Smart card technology for the first time. It will also be expanded to cover the heritage railways.
A public accounts committee report on the fiasco was presented to the November Tynwald sitting but never debated.
It concluded that serious mistakes were made in the procurement of the Almex bus ticketing system.
A civil servant with no experience in this area was put in charge of procurement and this hindered the selection of the most appropriate ticketing system.
When Almex was introduced, it didn’t deliver the required specification.
Giving evidence to the public accounts committee in September, director of public transport Ian Longworth said key routines were missed in the software and more than £30,000 had to be spent to fix it for immediate use.
Never more than a minor player, according to Mr Longworth, Almex has now withdrawn from the UK market entirely – confirming that the system was a ‘poor choice’, the committee concluded.
Its report found: ‘The department has not received value for money in spending £381,000 on the Almex system and having to replace it less than five years after it became operational.
‘Indeed we expect the overall cost to be much higher than £381,000 when considering the additional costs incurred in servicing.’
Unlike Almex, the proposed new Ticketer system will include a smart card reader so that the island can have a system like the top-up pay-as-you-go Oyster cards used in London. DCCL Minister Mr Cregeen has suggested they could be called Kipper cards.
Mr Longworth told the committee that the new system was expected to save about £200,000 a year and that it would help to eradicate ticket fraud.
